Hot Chocolate and Weddings
by bottled insanity
Summary: DxS. Danny and Sam reunite after two years of college at Tucker's over some hot chocolate. Danny mentions a wedding...CHPATER TWELVE IS UP!
1. Not Clueless?

**Chapter 1**

"So," Tucker said rather loudly as he slurped up a cup of hot cocoa, "you still haven't told him, have you?"

Sam blushed slightly, tinting her fair porcelain cheeks pink. "Tucker, we've had this conversation before," she said quietly.

"So you haven't?"

Sam sighed deeply. It had been eight years, eight whole years of her life that she had spent in love with Danny. And he still didn't know. "I don't like where this conversation is going."

Tucker eyed her warily. He'd known Sam loved Danny probably before she did. Here they were, both twenty and in college, and Danny was just as clueless to her feelings for him as he had been when he was fourteen. He put down his hot chocolate forcefully. "Why haven't you said anything to him? You know you like him, I know you like him, everyone else in Amity Park knows you like him..."

"But Danny's still clueless," she sighed into her tea. "If he had any feelings for me, he'd have noticed mine by now. I mean, how much more obvious can I get?" Her voice sounded pained.

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Well OF COURSE he's still clueless! He's still Danny! He's clueless about everything and he wouldn't be Danny if he wasn't." _And it's not like you're any better; he's loved you almost as long_. "Speaking of Danny, he called about a half hour ago. Wanted to make sure your plane came in alright." He watched her face for a reaction.

He wasn't disappointed. Sam's flush began at the nape of her neck and quickly spread over her face. "Is he coming here?" she asked breathlessly.

Tucker chuckled at her response. "Let me put it this way, Sam. Danny is to hot chocolate as his dad is to fudge." At that, they heard a knock on Tucker's front door.

Sam sipped on her tea, trying to compose herself. She hadn't seen Danny since they left for college two years ago. He had to stay in Amity Park as the town's ghostly protector, but he was lucky enough to find a college only a half hour away that had a decent aerospace engineering program. Sam went to Brown in Rhode Island and had stayed there for all of her vacations; she couldn't stand the thought of living with her parents again, especially when she had been presented with this wonderful oppotunity of delicious freedom. Tucker came to visit from MIT every so often and she still talked to Danny on the phone at least once a week, but it just wasn't the same.

Tucker stepped back into his kitchen, this time with Danny is tow. Sam's eyes widened slightly. She had been away too long. When she'd left, Danny was still short and lanky, just like he had been when he was fourteen. Now...his loose red shirt could barely contain the muscles rippling beneath. His hair was the same and it was different; it was a slightly longer cut, but just as messy. His icy blue eyes, just as beautiful as she remembered, betrayed his own surprise at seeing her for the first time in ages. She smiled. She had changed a lot, too.

Danny couldn't believe it. It had only been two years since he'd seen her and all at once, everything was different. She didn't look quite as gothic as she had; she wore a black v-neck and blue jeans. _I've never seen her in jeans before_. Her hair had grown out a bit, a few inches down her back, and she was wearing it down. Around her neck was a simple amethyst necklace that matched her eyes perfectly. He noticed her shy smile and couldn't contain one of his own. _At least she still has that purple lipstick._ She was gorgeous, a woman.

Sam picked up her tea and took a small sip. "Hey, Danny."

Danny's face fell. Two years they had gone without seeing each other, and now he didn't even get a hug? Seeing his disappointment, Sam stood up and gave him a quick embrace. Danny tried to hold it a little longer, but Sam broke it before it became awkward. They were, after all, in Tuck's kitchen.

"Hey," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was blushing madly. "It's, uh, been awhile."

Sam smiled at his obvious nervousness. "Yeah, it has. How's the ghost hunting business treating you?" she asked as she handed him a cup of hot cocoa. He smiled gratefully and downed the whole thing in one gulp.

"I've been better," he said grimly, setting down his mug and sitting across from Sam. "Vlad keeps giving Skulker and Valerie new upgrades. Yeah, she's still here," he added as Sam groaned. "Probably for the same reasons I am. But as far as good news goes," he added with a smirk, "I was invited to a wedding. The Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady."

Sam fell out of her chair and Tucker whipped his head around. His eyes were bulging out of his head in a mixture of horror and disgust. "Okay, that's just gross! Why didn't you tell me THAT before?"

Danny shrugged. "I was only invited a couple of hours ago." He took a deep breath. "They said to bring a date." He glanced quickly at Sam, who had just seated herself back in her chair.

She looked back at him, a bit confused. "A date?" Danny nodded. "I think Tuck might be taken."

Danny groaned as his eyes flashed green. "Not Tuck! I'm asking you!" He stopped himself, eyes returning to their natural blue, suddenly seeming shy. He looked at his hot chocolate. "Would you be my date?"

Tucker's eyes widened. _Since when was he...well, not clueless?_ He looked at Sam and almost burst out laughing. Her eyes were twice as big as usual and her jaw was dropped. Apparently she didn't think he'd wise up either.

"W-when is the wedding?" Sam asked, studdering a bit. She was a bit shaken up after all. The boy she'd loved for half her life was asking her out!

"Two weeks from Thursday," Danny said, looking right into her eyes. "You'll still be in town, right?"

"Yeah, I'm here for all of winter break," she replied. "Up through the tenth of January."

Danny looked a bit nervous. She hadn't answered his question yet! "So, uh, Sam, do you want to go with me?" he asked again, smiling sheepishly.

Sam's face completely lit up as she smiled. "I would love to."


	2. Staying With Danny?

**Chapter 2**

Tucker shook his head as he smiled. He couldn't believe that his two clueless friends had finally gotten it through their thick skulls that they like each other!

Danny looked up at Sam. He couldn't keep a smile off his face. She just said yes! "So where are you staying while you're in Amity Park?"

Sam shrugged. "Here, I guess. Where else would I have such a wonderful opportunity to make Tucker's life a living hell?" She smirked at Tuck, who stuck his tongue out at her. "Oh, very mature, Tuck."

"At least he doesn't go around anymore saying 'Tucker Foley, T.F., as in Too Fine,' " Danny sniggered. Tucker narrowed his eyes at his two best friends.

"Okey, great, now they're ganging up on me!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in defeat before pointing to Sam. "You are no longer welcome to stay here, Samantha Manson," he said half-jokingly.

Sam's face became contorted with anger as an angry red flush came to her face. Tucker blanched and took a step back as he realized his fatal mistake. No one called her Smantha without being on the receiving end of one of her kicks. And she was wearing her trademark combat boots. "You did NOT..." She trailed off as Danny grabbed her arm.

"Well, if you can't stay here with Tucker," he said hoarsely, licking his lips, "You're welcome to stay with me."

Tucker stared at Danny. _Well, this is working out better than expected_...

Sam wrinkled her nose. "That depends. Are you still living at home?"

Danny laughed. "No way! Just because I have to live close by doesn't mean I have to live there full time!" He smiled at Sam giggled. _Since when does she giggle?_ "It'll just be the two of us."

Sam's eyes widened slightly as she realized what he was saying. "Uh, Danny, I think Tucker was just kidding..." she mumbled.

"Nope," Tucker shook his head. "I meant it. Stay with Danny. It'll be..." He smirked. "...an experience."

Sam sighed in defeat, her heart leaping in her chest, though whether out of excitement or fear she couldn't tell. "Okay, fine. Danny, my bags are in the guestroom over there." She saw Danny's blank look and laughed. "What? You invite me to stay and then expect me to carry my own luggage?"

Danny blushed. No, it wasn't that. He didn't think she'd take his offer. "Sure, I'll get them," he said as he stood.

- - - - - - -

"So do you live on campus or what?" Sam inquired as Danny drove. He was very proud of his Mustang, which he'd managed to fix up himself (or so he said), and they had wasted ten minutes before leaving as he showed it off.

Danny shook his head. "Nah, they close during the holidays. I live five minutes away in a student apartment complex."

Sam nodded, her eyes widening slightly. What would she do when it was just her and Danny, left alone in an apartment together? _Well, I know what I _want_ to do_...

She shook her head and tried to clear her mind. She'd loved him for so long, and she never thought he liked her as anything more than a friend. He'd certainly never given any indication that he did. And now, with the whole "date" thing, what was she to think? She certainly shouldn't abuse this new opportunity by jumping his bones at the first chance.

Danny sneaked a glance at Sam. She had a worried look on her face. He would have looked longer had he not remembered that he was driving. "You okay?"

Sam's head snapped up from her thoughts. "Yeah, I think so."

Danny frowned, not missing that catch. "What do you mean, 'you think so?' "

She touched her fingers to her amethyst necklace as she stared out the window. "I don't know what I mean," she sighed finally. "It's just weird seeing you again after not seeing you for so long, you know?"

Danny let out a sigh. "Yeah, I mean it's two years of our lives." He gave a sad smile. "We've changed."

Sam was about to reply when Danny turned the car into a parking lot. He turned towards her, a mischievious look on his face. "Danny..." Sam started, but was cut off as Danny wordlessly transformed into Danny Phantom, took her by the waist, and phased them out of the car and towards his apartment. Danny smiled as Sam clung to him. It had been awhile since she'd been flying. It was cute to watch her become gradually accustomed as they reached the fifteenth floor and landed on a balcony.

Danny noticed that she hadn't let go of him at the same time Sam realized that he was still holding her by the waist. They turned their heads towards each other. _She looks beautiful in the moonlight_, Danny thought to himself as he found himself moving closer to her.

"Danny," Sam said again, this time more of a sigh, as she leaned in...

"What the hell are you doing on my porch?" yelled an angry red haired student as he burst through the screen door. Danny and Sam jumped back immediately, both blushing furiously. Danny, remembering that he was still in ghost form, just smirked and flew off with Sam in his arms.

**A/N I didn't really feel like holding out on this chapter for too long. The next one should be out by Friday. It should also be slightly longer. Thanks to those of you who have reviewed, namely RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, and Snea!**


	3. Sleepwalking?

**A/N** I've decided to move the A/N to the top. Personal decision. I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed the last two chapters, namely RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, Snea, gothagel12345, Tara, DarkMoon1301, Beyonce's Angel925, too-morbid-for-words05, cutereviewgirl, Save Danny69, and Majestic Moon. Oh, and because I've forgotten to do this with all of the other chapters:

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Butch Hartman owns all. (Actually, I do own the book mentioned, Ghost Writer. But that's it.)

**Chapter Three**

"Yeah, sorry about that," laughed Danny as Sam gave him an indignant look. "My room is on the other side of the building. I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention to what I was doing." He set her down on an identical balcony and looked through the glass door before confirming it as his room.

Sam wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. Danny's living room actually appeared to be liveable; no garbage on the floor, no mold growing out the ceiling, no walls oozing green slime (or ectoplasm). He had a comfy-looking couch, a medium-sized television screen opposite the couch, two bookshelves crammed with books, and a little coffee table. "Wow," Sam nodded approvingly, "This is actually nice."

"What, did you expect me to live in a trash can?" Danny asked with a sarcastic smile. "Here, allow me to give you the grand tour."

The grand tour wasn't all that grand; he had a neat little kitchenette outfitted with a full-sized refridgerator and a microwave oven, a bathroom with a shower, and a bedroom that looked suspiciously like his old one, down to the color of the paint on the walls.

"So where am I supposed to sleep?" Sam inquired. "Couch?"

"Yeah, you could sleep on the couch," Danny said, a small grin appearing on his face. "Or you could sleep in the bed." Sam's face definitely showed her shock and Danny began cracking up. "Oh, come on Sammy, I didn't mean with me. I'd take the couch." _Unless you wanted me to stay, of course_.

Sam let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "Would you mind if I took the bed?"

"Nah. I kind of wanted to watch some TV tonight anyway and I wouldn't have wanted to disturb you."

Sam yawned. "Well, I'm tired. That flight was excruciatingly long and boring."

"Okay. Night, Sam." Danny sat on the couch and turned on the television.

"Night." She went into Danny's bedroon and closed the door behind her. It really was just like his old room. A carbon copy, but a bit smaller. She lay down on his bed fully clothed, too tired to even change, and drifted off to sleep in Danny's bed.

- - - - - - -

Danny quickly turned off the television set. He hadn't really watched that much lately; he found reading to be much more relaxing. He scanned through the titles on the shelves, finally deciding on one called Ghost Writer. It was about different ghost stories and hauntings. He chuckled to himself as he skimmed through the table of contents, recognizing many of the ghosts. The so-called "Ghost of Christmas Present," famed for stealing Christmas packages but leaving the presents themselves, had to be the Box Ghost. Who else would go through all that trouble to steal cardboard boxes?

Danny sighed as he leafed through the book. Sam had just completely walked back into his life after completely walking out of it for two years. He'd had a huge crush on her back in high school, but never had the guts to tell her. He'd catch himself staring at her during class, allowing his eyes to wander places that he wouldn't normally look. Her gothic individuality really had won him over, as well as her unique beauty. Then came college and it felt like it was too late. He hadn't seen her for two years and felt as though she was purposely avoiding him. He tried to establish other relationships, but they were all half-hearted attempts at replacing the irreplacable Sam. Now he was just confused. How could he just, out of the blue, fall so hard for someone he had worked to get over?

He smiled, knowing the answer to his question._ I never really did fall out of love, did I?_

He froze as he heard a door open, then footsteps on his cold wooden floor. Sam turned the corner looking tired and dishevelled, her eyes barely open. Dany's eyes widened as she came stumbling over to him. "Sam?" He was worried. Was she sleepwalking?

Sam's eyes fluttered halfway open and she smiled sleepily. "Danny," she sighed as she had earlier that night. Danny's eyes were now wide in a panic as she stepped closer and lay down in front of him on the couch. _Oh god, she's sleepwalking. What happens if she wakes up?_ Sam started to fall backwards off the couch, but Danny slid his arms around her waist to keep her from getting hurt. She turned to him and threw her arms around his neck, nuzzling his face with hers. She felt so warm to him. Danny groaned as he felt a very obvious reaction he was having to her. He only hoped that she didn't notice.

If she did, she didn't seem to care. She rubbed her nose against his before finding his mouth with hers. Danny felt a jolt of electricity from her soft, soft lips. He tightened his grip around her waist and pulled them closer as her fingers fisted in his hair. It was what he had wanted for so long, he was able to momentarily forget that she was still mostly asleep. He ran his tongue lightly across her lips, wanting to taste more of her.

Sam's eyes flew open. What the _hell_ was she doing? Was that...was that Danny in front of her? Were they kissing? She backed away slightly, looking as confused as she felt. Danny opened his eyes as well and saw the shock in her eyes. He reluctantly loosened his grip on her waist and sat up on the couch. What had he been thinking? He mentally kicked himself for forgetting that she was not technically a willing participant.

"Danny?" Her voice no longer had that breathy quality to it, now questioning, almost sounding scared. "What was that?"

Danny stared at the ground. "It...I...You were sleepwalking," he finally decided.

"Oh." Sam sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Then..." She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "What were you doing?"

Danny found his floor fascinating. "I...don't know," he admitted. "I'm a twenty year old male, what was I supposed to do?" He looked up suddenly as he realized he'd said the wrong thing.

"Oh, so you would have been kissing any girl who came up to you like that?" Sam demanded, her voice rising with each word. "You were supposed to stop, take me to your room, gone away, something!" Her eyes now shined with unshed tears. She felt as though she'd been taken advantage of.

Danny looked down at her. She was right. What was he thinking? "I'm sorry, Sam. I wasn't thinking clearly."

She stood wordlessly and walked to Danny's room, closing the door behind her. Danny listened and heard her sob. He sighed, knowing that neither of them would get much sleep that night.


	4. Dreaming?

**A/N** Happy New Years to everyone! Sorry this is out so late, but from Christmas through New Years I was unable to type anything due to lack of time. And thank you to my fantastical reviewers who, because there are so many, I won't list them all here and now. But know that you are all appreciated for what you do.

Just so you, the reader, know, the long bit of italics beginning with the phrase **Five or six years younger** is Sam's dream. The regular, nonitalicized text witin this is Sam's thoughts. This is my way of doing dreams or flashbacks. And, just so you know when a dream/flashback begins, I will always put a colon after the phrase directly before it (unless it is its own section or chapter). For safety's sake, I'll always mention a dream/flashback in the Author's Note up here.

**Disclaimer:** Butch Hartman owns the Danny Phantom universe. I, however, own this story.

**Chapter 4**

Sam crawled slowly back into bed, this time dressed in proper nightclothes. She was never one for the frilly nightgowns her mother once insisted she wear; they always made her feel like she was sleeping in a tutu. She made herself comfortable in one of her old t-shirts, long enough that it trailed down a few inches past her thighs. She lay under the covers of Danny's bed, thinking about what had just happened. _How the hell did I end up kissing him? It was just like my dream..._

She suddenly sprang back up, forgetting her drowsiness. _Wait, it was just like my dream? What was I dreaming?_ Sam tried to remember, closing her eyes and allowing the images to drift back to her:

_Five or six years younger. That would put her at about fourteen or fifteen. Something like that._

_Wait a second, that wasn't her signature shirt-n-skirt that she was wearing. No, that wasn't it at all._

_She took a moment to look at herself in one of the long, full length mirrors in the hallway. It was beautiful. Her hair was half up in two buns with spikes of hair hanging out. She'd decided to go with the purple eyeshadow that night, along with some darker purple lipstick and a bit of glitter around her cheekbones. Her dress was utterly gothic and gorgeous. The top was a black corset with fishnet material for her sleeves, which hugged her every curve. The bottom was loose, floorlength purple silk. Her neck was adorned with a black choker and her purse was black with a small violet skull._

_Oh, right, This was the first dance of freshman year. She remembered that._

_Suddenly the dream skipped forward, past some of the other events that she knew had taken place that night: being picked up by Tucker, of all people; talking to Paulina, that shallow witch, in the bathroom; turning into a dragon ghost after Paulina insulted Danny. It skipped right to the part where she had asked Danny to dance._

_"Look, the DJ's still playing," Sam noticed, "And I think there's time for one last dance." She didn't show it, but she was nervous as hell._

_Danny smiled. "Sure, I'd love to." Sam's smile grew as she took his arm. Danny, with a satisfied look on his face, placed the cursed amulet in Tucker's hands. "Keep an eye on this, will ya?" And with that, he and Sam walked to the dance floor, Danny arms hesitantly holding her by the waist and Sam's arms around his neck._

_Sam snuck a mischievous look at Danny. "Promise me you'll keep your pants up?"_

_"I'll do my best," he replied with a nervous grin._

_Then, without warning, Sam stumbled backwards, but quickly regained her composure. Danny, unfortunately, hadn't had quite that much luck; he had fallen onto the gym floor, which didn't look all that comfortable. He looked up at her, his beautiful ice blue eyes dancing over her form. His trademark smile came to his face as he looked at her face, at her eyes. "Sam," he breathed, quiet under the music._

_Sam smiled. She knew what she wanted. "Danny," she sighed, laying down beside him. They were both on their sides facing the same direction, with Sam in front. She could feel the warm chill from his body right behind her. She shivered. _This never happened at the dance,_ peeped a small voice in the back of her head._

_She started to roll to her other side, but Danny's arms came from behind, wrapping comfortably around her waist. She had loved him since the seventh grade and this was what she knew she wanted from him. She turned in his arms to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She rubbed her cheek against his, smiling at how soft his skin was. He wore a somewhat uncomfortable look on his face, but she realized it wasn't that he didn't like what she was doing. No, he seemed to like it quite a bit, if the hard-on was any indication. _Holy shit, I'm turning him on! _Sam thought to herself._

_She moved her face so that their noses were touching, their mouths mere centimeters apart. His heartbeat was quickening; hell, so was hers. She'd always wanted her first kiss to be with Danny, and here it was. Less than an inch away. _To hell with it!_ She leaned in and kissed him with all she had. Sam smiled as she felt Danny's arms tighten around her waist. She pulled one of her hands up to his messy black hair, wanting to taste more of him._

_Apparently, he had the same idea._

That was, of course, when she'd woken up. Now, she'd known that none of the kissing or the cuddling had actually happened; that was just her brain's way of manipulating her memories to become what she wanted them to have been. _Because that makes so much sense..._But she was still puzzled. What the hell had happened so that she was kissing Danny in real life?

_Was I really sleepwalking?_

_- - - - - - -_

Three hours of sleep, four at the most. Sam was dead tired. She'd spent all night thinking, and for what? Well, not much. Her brain had never worked at its full potential when she was that tired. Apparently it didn't work all that well in the mornings, either. She didn't really register the sound of running water in the bathroom. She didn't register the whistling, either. She just wanted a shower to wake herself up.

What she didn't count on was coming face to face with a showering Danny.

The shower was, of course, glass. Sam decided right then that the powers-that-be in the universe either really liked her or really hated her.

For some reason, Sam didn't turn away. She felt the blush rising on her cheeks, but she stayed rooted. All of those muscles she had seen the day before under his shirt...wow, ghost hunting did have its advantages. And all those scars. Sam remembered many from when she'd attempted to heal him herself back in high school. There were the ones from Skulker, three swipes across his right upper arm. One rather winding scar from Technus across his chest. One from Plasmius that took an entire week to heal, snaking across his back.

Sam allowed her gaze to wander slightly lower. _I feel like a goddamn voyeur! _His lower back was covered in short scars, probably from Valerie. His...thighs also looked torn up. She didn't recognize any of those, though. It must have been from college. Now, there were likely more ghosts, dangerous ones, than there had been in high school. Danny was lucky to have even lived this long with all of those ghosts targeting him all of the time.

Danny had been whistling the whole time, eyes closed, oblivious to Sam's presence. Just as Sam had began to...look lower, Danny's eyes flew open in search of the soap. Of course, he hadn't expected to see Sam blushingly staring at him in the doorway. His own face was tinged red as hundreds of questions buzzed around in his head. He froze in place, not even attempting to cover himself. After a moment of struggling, he emitted a squeaky, "Sam?"

Sam's face snapped up, eyes wide in horror and cheeks blushing more furiously than ever before. She quickly cast her eyes downward at the floor, muttered a soft "Sorry," and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Danny, needless to say, was still in a state of shock. His best friend, the girl he'd had a huge crush on for years, just saw him completely naked. _Why didn't she just turn away and leave? That's what she expected me to do last night. Although she wasn't naked. _He turned off the shower and wrapped himself in a towel. _Not that it really matters, she's seen it all already,_ he thought bemusedly.

He walked into the living room, smirking as he saw Sam sitting on the couch with a face as red as a tomato. She didn't dare look at him as he sat beside her; she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, though she doubted her face could get any redder. Danny, however, looked straight at her and, still smirking, asked, "So, Sam, when do you plan on returning the favor?"


	5. Physical Contact?

**A/N** Okay, long wait, yes, I know. However, I have attempted to make it up with the longest chapter thus far, nearly doubling the length of the last chapter. Watch out for the huge italicized part in the middle, which is a flashback. For some reason, I like writing flashbacks a lot; they seem to come out better than...well, the rest of the chapter, actually. I have attempted to draw a few parallels between the flashback and what happens before and after. And if you spot the single reference to one of my other stories (you don't have to look very far, there's only two), then you get a cookie.

Thank you to my many reviewers. Forty-seven reviews! HOLY CRAP! Thanks to RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, Snea, gothangel12345, Tara, DarkMoon1301, Beyonce's Angel925, too-morbid-for-words05, cutereviewgirl, Save danny69, Majestic Moon, bluename, theoneandonlydarkpowderpuff, Fairly Odd Phantom Fan, Writer's-BlockDP, PrincessKimikokitty, katiesparks, Rishi-Rishi, karmatic.luv, AirGirl Phantom, Conny14Sam, white artemis, lovingoxford321, and Tech-Man!

**Disclaimer:** Butch Hartman owns everything Danny Phantom. If I owned it like I own this story, then it sure as hell wouldn't be getting cancelled.

**Chapter 5**

Sam rolled her eyes. _I'd like to have thought that he had matured somewhat since high school._ He still had that smirk plastered on his face. He looked so self-satisfied with his less-than-mature remark that it was almost hard to stand.

And then an idea hit. As much as she loved him, she still loved messing with him. "As appealing as that sounds," she said dryly, the sarcasm coming off her in waves. Suddenly, she smiled, a sort of half-smirk, before pressing her lips firmly against his.

Danny's eyes bugged out. _Isn't this supposed to be the part where Sam blushes and stutters? _He felt her tongue brush across his lips, asking a silent question. _You know what, I think I like this better_, he thought to himself as his eyes closed, his lips now parted.

Their last fakeout makeout was brought to the front of both of their minds. _He tastes just like I remember_, thought Sam as she slid her tongue into his mouth. Her tongue met his as they wrapped their arms around each other. They stayed like that for a few minutes, attempting to close all space between each other, before Sam hesitantly pulled away. Smiling the same half-smirk, she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "I always keep 'em wanting more."

Danny, lying on his back, shivered as Sam spoke. He watched silently as she sachayed towards his room, his mouth agape the entire time. She stopped in the doorway to turn back to him, smiling that same seductive grin before quietly closing the door behind her. Almost instinctively, Danny's hand rose to his lips. He hadn't exactly become a ladies' man in the last two years; far from it. He'd absorbed himself so much in both his schoolwork and his ghostfighting that girls, as a whole, were an aside. Sure, he casually dated every once in a while, but still not much. But with Sam back...

"GAH!" he yelled as he unceremoniously fell onto the floor. Hey, at least he didn't hit his head on the coffee table. He shook his head as he smiled to himself. _With Sam back, life will be a lot more interesting_.

- - - - - - -

Sam was humming. She didn't even recognize the tune, but damn it all if she was going to stop humming it. This morning had been rather...different. She was usually so shy around Danny, especially after a blushy moment like THAT. So what exactly was she going to do about it?

_Hell if I know._

She was currently curled up on her bed with her journal. Her pen was poised just above the page, stopping just short of actually marking the page. How would she record this momentous occasion? Meh, much better to think of what she was going to say before actually saying it. After all, she was planning on going back to that particular page quite a bit in her future. She sat there in thought, unable to phrase the words exactly as she wanted them. Ugh, writer's block...and it was only her journal.

"Well, this is getting nowhere fast," she grumbled to herself. She closed the book (it really was a book by this point; around ten years of her life were chronicled in there) and opened it to a random page. Page two hundred and twelve, age thirteen, May 30. Sam's eyes widened. Oh. Oh, dear. This was the day that the term "fakeout makeout" had been coined. Okay, that would have been a little too coincidental for Sam's taste. It was actually three days before that particular date. As to why Sam remembered the date, well, it had been her first kiss.

For some reason, she was curious to see what she'd written. After all, it's not like she read through her own diary every night like novel; in fact, she barely even skimmed through her old entries anymore. She flipped through a few more pages - damn, she wrote a lot at that age! - until she finally settled on it.

_221_

_June 2_

_Holy crap, I just had my first kiss._

Sam snorted. Of course she hadn't written much on it, she'd been too excited to contain herself. But even at twenty years of age, Sam could still remember that night clearly.

_For some inexplicable reason, Dash had invited Danny, Sam, and Tucker to his graduation party.Sam had a hunch it was his parents' doing. She could clearly see the awed faces of many kids with whom Dash would obviously never consort. Dash was in the corner of the room wearing a scowl on his face, clearly disgusted by the many unpopular kids hanging about his house._

_"Wow," breathed Danny. He apparently couldn't get over his "good luck" at being invited to one of Dash Baxter's parties. It might have meant something about his rising popularity. Sam rolled her eyes. Somehow, she didn't think that was the case._

_It had been about a year since Sam realized that she had a crush on her best friend and, sadly, nothing had happened since then. He, of course, had become borderline obsessed with Paulina during the course of their middle school careers. So had every other boy that was just discovering his own testosterone. For some reason, this had led to his crazy desire to be popular. _As if, _Sam scoffed._

_"Hey, Danny, I think I see Tucker." Tucker, being Tucker, had wandered off to hit on some poor, unsuspecting girl. And Tucker, being Tucker, had most likely been slapped by now. Sam took hold of Danny's wrist and pulled him in Tucker's direction. Danny apparently had other plans and his feet refused to move from that spot. Sam caught his gaze and, of course, it was directed towards Paulina._

_Sam huffed. _Why does Danny like her so much anyway?_ "Danny..." He was now visibly drooling. "DANNY!"_

_Danny jumped slightly and turned to face Sam. "What?" he asked irritatedly. His arms were now crossed in front of his chest and his eyes were directed at her. Only his gaze was nothing like the loving look he gave to Paulina; all Sam received from his was a cold glare for having interrupted him at his Paulina-watching. Sam's face faltered a bit; why did he have to save such longing glances for someone so utterly not worth his time?_

_"Um." Sam couldn't think of anything. All she could see was Danny's cool gaze. "...um..." Now she was just searching for any plausible excuse to have done that. Why did she do that, anyway? Oh, right Tucker. No, he was just her first excuse. It was really Paulina the Bitch and her low cut shirts. And then, out of nowhere, she knew what to say._

_"You like Paulina, right?"_

_Danny cocked an eyebrow. Duh, of course he did. "Yeah..."_

_"But she doesn't seem to be noticing you too much."_

_"Well, no..."_

_"I know how to make her see you."_

_Danny's eyes widened as his eyebrows disappeared somewhere underneath his messy bangs. Sam smirked inwardly at that look; hell, she smirked outwardly at it, too. She wasn't completely sure it would work, but, hey, she hated Paulina ,Paulina hated her. Maybe, if she timed it right..."How?" Danny asked, almost breathlessly._

_"C'mere." Sam grabbed Danny roughly by the wrist and dragged him near to where Paulina was standing. She could feel Paulina's loathsome gaze on her, so she turned to return it. Danny was kind of a puddle of mush. Sam frowned. "Focus." Immediately his eyes shot back to hers, ready to do what he needed to do to get Paulina's attention._

_Sam's heart raced. She knew what she was about to do and, frankly, it scared her. What if he liked it? What if he didn't? Would Paulina take notice and steal him away from her? Or would she just never notice Danny at all? Pushing these thoughts out of her head, Sam returned to the task at hand and, shutting her eyes quickly, leaned forward and kissed Danny full on the lips._

_Well, it was actually more like she she crashed her lips against his. She had never kissed someone before and sincerely hoped he didn't hate her for this. To be quite honest, she thought it felt really good._

_She could feel Danny frozen beside her. Smirking, she put his hands on her waist before throwing her own around his neck. She cracked open one of her eyes slightly to see Danny's eyes looking like they were going to pop from their sockets._

_Hesitantly, she pulled away, not sure how he would react after that. His eyes were unfocused and his arms were frozen in place even after she took a step back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Paulina shaking with what she could only assume to be rage. Sam let out a small chuckle as she imagined the thoughts that must be flying around in the shallow bitch's head. Paulina, now completely livid that the freaky Goth girl had kissed someone before her, stomped away._

_Sam felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Danny, his face showing a mixture of emotions and his hand raised to his lips. "Sam..." he said quietly. No. No, she couldn't even dare to hope he fell in love with her after that. It was just a kiss, after all. Right? Even with this impeccable logic at her disposal, Sam's face still shone with a glimmer of hope._

_"You just made out with me."_

_"Eh?" Well that wasn't what she'd expected him to say. Should she deny it? Duh. "No, no, we were just faking Paulina out so that she would notice you," she said quickly, ending with a nervous giggle. "You mean you thought that was real?"_

_Danny looked so cute when he blushed. "No, I knew it was fake. A fakeout makeout, ha." He smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous._

_Sam couldn't help but smile at his obvious discomfort. "Yeah, a fakeout makeout."_

That, unsurprisingly, was the night that everyone started calling them "lovebirds."

She was stirred out of her thoughts by a crash in the kitchen. "Oh, god, now what?" she sighed, not forgetting to put her journal away at the bottom of her luggage. Like hell was she leaving THAT out in the open for prying eyes to find. She walked towards the kitchen slowly and silently, half expecting Danny to have broken something expensive. _Wait, he's a college guy. He doesn't own anything expensive_.

No, now that she was actually there to survey the damage for herself, she saw Danny hovering over a broken bowl, trying to pick up all of the pieces. The popcorn which, obviously, had previously been in the bowl was now strewn across the room. It was such an ordinary scene, klutzy ghost boy cleaning up the damage he's caused.

For some reason, this made Sam feel like crying. She'd been away for two years. Two whole years. She'd missed her friends, of course, especially Danny, but for some reason it hit her that she'd missed everything more than she'd realized. Here he was, cleaning up the mess as he'd always done, and here she was, just standing and watching. Is this how it always was? All this time he'd had his alter ego, Danny had done his job and rid the town of many a ghostly plague while she just...watched. At least it was better than nothing, she was still a partof his life and still a part of the team. And then she was gone. Nothing to watch, no team to belong to. Just her, only her. Her alone.

Sam felt the tears slipping from her eyes. _Damn it._

For some reason, probably because he had just noticed her shadow, Danny looked up at her. Tears were streaming down her face as he looked on in horror. In half a second he was on his feet, his arm slung around her shoulders comfortingly. "Sam?" he whispered, a little afraid. He'd never seen Sam cry before. "Sam, are you okay?" He saw when she looked up that she was filled with some kind of pain. "Oh, god, you stepped on a piece of the bowl didn't you?" he asked, silently cursing himself for letting her get near enough to get hurt.

Sam gave him a weird look. _Okay, not that._ He pressed his hand to her cheek, lightly wiping away some of her tears with his thumb. "What's wrong?"

Gathering up all of the happiness she could muster, she smiled through her tears. "Nothing, Danny. I just feel like I'm missing a lot by being off at college."

"Is there...is there anything I can do to help?"

Sam thought for a moment before sighing. "Well, I guess you could do something stupid." Danny narrowed his eyes. Apparently, he hadn't understood what she meant, so she elaborated a bit. "You know, to cheer me up."

Danny raised an eyebrow. If this was how she got her kicks..."Fine. Any ideas?"

Sam shook her head. "No, then it wouldn't be a surprise which, in turn, wouldn't make it funny."

"Hmm..." Danny paced as he thought. And then, out of nowhere, he knew what to say. "What if I do something that could quite possibly be stupid?"

"Uh..."

"'Cause I've got something in mind that could cheer you up, though it's not exactly funny." _At least, I hope not_.

"Uh, sure. Why not?"

Danny smiled, almost wickedly, before walking up next to Sam. This part hadn't even been planned; it just kind of flew into his head. What if she liked it? What if she didn't? Pushing any negative thoughts from his head, he leaned in towards her.


	6. Invisible?

**A/N **Hey, guys, new chapter. And it's actually up the day I promised it' be up for! Yay! Basically, I wanted a ghost in this, especially one you don't see too much in fanfics, so I chose this one. Plus, I decided that I'd have a bit of a plot to this, not just randomly dispersed fluff (not that I don't like the fluff). Oh, and it's another long chapter. They should all start to be around this length, so expect it but don't come and kill me if it's short. After all, how could you finish the story with a dead author? That's right, you can't. I'm also slightly disappointed taht none of you even _attempted_ to guess the two references, but whatever. Oh, also there is going to be an A/N at the bottom. Don't ask why, just go with it.

Also, I'm kind of experimenting with slightly different writing styles/tones for the chapters. Tell me if they suck or not.

Thanks to my wonderful reviewers, RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, Snea, gothangel12345, Tara, DarkMoon1301, Beyonce's Angel925, too-morbid-for-words05, cutereviewgirl, Save danny69, Majestic Moon, bluename, theoneandonlydarkpowderpuff, Fairly Odd Phantom Fan, Writer's-BlockDP, PrincessKimikokitty, katiesparks, Rishi-Rishi, karmatic.luv, AirGirl Phantom, Conny14Sam, white artemis, lovingoxford321, Tech-Man, Megatha, jessicajason, and Danneh-'n-Sam-4eva. You guys ROCK! Also, thanks to the people who have favorited this story and put it on author alert. It just occured to me that I haven't give you guys your due recognition yet, so thanks.

**Disclaimer:** Danny Phantom is not mine. I wish he was...

**Chapter Six**

And that's when Danny's ghost sense went off.

_Perfect timing_, he thougt bitterly. He was mere inches away from Sam, eyes already half-lidded and lips already sligtly parted. _Ah, damn_. He took a step back, a blush forming on his face. "I gotta go take care of that," he stated quietly as more of the blue vapor leaked from his lips. He didn't want to go, of course. He really didn't. But, unfortunately, as he was the resident half-ghost and one of two capable ghost hunters around, he had to. It was his duty.

And Sam understood that. It just...it didn't make it any better. _I was so close!_ "I know," she said, just as softly as he had, her eyes cast down at the floor. Her cheeks were still stained from her sudden outburst before. She looked so upset, so disappointed. Danny couldn't take it. In one swift movement, he stepped forward, cupping her cheek, and kissed her lightly on the lips. Sam's eyes widened, not having expected this, but closed quickly as she responded to his touch.

Pulling away after a few seconds, Danny's body was engulfed by two blindingly white rings that circled over his form, transforming him into Danny Phantom. Sam paused, taking a look at what she was seeing; it had been dark last night when he had last transformed and she hadn't really seen what Phantom looked like after two years. What she saw...she couldn't help but stare. All of those muscles that were slightly visible under _loose_ clothing...picture that under skin-tight spandex. His eyes glowed with green ferocity under the bangs of his pearl white hair. Again, he possessed a sense of confidence that was rarely seen when he was human; even as he was moving in to kiss her, he seemed nervous. Now, any shadows of self-doubt were erased from his features as he turned intangible, whispering "I'll be back soon" before flying out through the ceiling.

Sam smiled. It hadn't registered seconds before, but he still had the DP emblem that she had designed for him. Just knowing that, that he had kept that small part of her with him through the years, it made her feel happy. Like she wasn't just the best friend who left and was forgotten. Like she had never stepped out of the picture at all.

- - - - - - -

Danny raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. For some reason, his eyes had become a lot more sensitive to the light; it probably had something to do with the nature of being a ghost, or half of one, anyway. _I should just get some sunglasses and be done with it._

In the six years he'd been fighting ghosts, that wasn't the only thing that had changed. He'd discovered new powers, of course. He could now multiply neatly into eight separate entities, each with its own mind that linked back to the original. At first, he'd assumed that he'd get some sort of fire powers to go along with his ice, but that had, surprisingly, never happened. However, his ectoplasmic energy blast, so affectionately dubbed his "ghost ray," was now capable of burning through rock. As in boulders. He'd also finally mastered his ghostly wail enough that he could control its volume and potency. One of the newer powers involved the ability to control objects that he wasn't actually touching. For example, if he wanted to, he could make a car go invisible and float up to soar beside him right now.

Needless to say, his power had grown almost exponentially, his focus trailing only slightly behind his skill. This gave him allies, most of them weak, but allies nonetheless. This was how he'd come to be close enough to the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady that he'd been invited to their wedding. _Ew, it's still weird to think about them getting married_.

He'd gotten powerful enough that he'd even defeated Vlad, once and for all. That is not to say that Danny killed him, but let's just say that Vlad was now no more comfortable than Danny's evil future self. The only difference was that Dan wasn't kept under Danny's bed.

A sudden crash got Danny's attention. _Gah, I need to stop spacing out. Concentrate..._He looked around, but could see no sign of the ghost, whoever it was.

"Oof!" Something slammed into his stomach _really_ hard, winding him as he started to fall from the sky. He recovered quickly enough to stop himself before splattering against the pavement. _Okay, so there IS a ghost here. Invisible? Nah, they like taunting me too much. Unless it's a new ghost..._

Out of nowhere, a green beam of ectoplasm hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him up against a nearby building. Whoever this ghost was, he didn't play fair.

"Okay, buddy, you asked for it!" Of course, Danny was just bluffing at this point. He couldn't see the ghost, he didn't know who the ghost was, he didn't know its powers. This was turning out to be a really shitty battle.

_Okay_, he thought to himself, _so I can't see the ghost. What ghosts do I know of that wouldn't have come out and laughed at me by now? Or couldn't?_ Danny gasped audibly. _That's it!_

He was quite please with himself, as one could tell from the smirk that now adorned his face. Clueless, ha! Like hell was he clueless! He managed to figure this out all on his own! No help from anyone else! He was practically doing the happy dance in his mind.

Now, how to set about the task at hand. To the ghost he could not see, he yelled back, "See ya later!" before swooping off to his house. Or, rather his parents's house.

Without any second thoughts, he phased into his sister's room. Jazz just so happened to be sitting at her desk, typing something thesis-y on her computer. She was, by now, in Harvard's psychology grad school and had wasted no time in already starting on her thesis paper. Danny sat on her bed, a childish grin adorning his face. "Boo!" he yelled, ignoring its overuse.

Jazz jumped about a foot and a half in the air, letting out a slight shriek before turning to Danny with an angered look on her face. "Danny! What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothin'." He picked up her precious Bearbert and, lighting one of his fingers with a carefully controlled amount of ecto energy, placed it to the stuffed animal's neck. He looked up at Jazz to see her horrified face, her mouth agape at her brother's sudden display of sadism towards her precious childhood companion.

"NO! DANNY!" Jazz's eyes welled up with tears. "THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" _Why would he be doing this to me? He hasn't threatened poor Bearbert since...Oh._ All of a sudden, her antics stopped, understanding why her broher was acting the way he was. Why not give him a little bit of help? "YOU...YOU LOSER!"

Danny's face fell. Even though this was the exact reaction he had been hoping for, it still sucked. "I am NOT a loser!" he said, his arms crossed over his chest. He saw Jazz smiling across from him, letting him know that he was pouting. _Yes!_

"Thanks, Jazz." And with that, he was off once more. To someone who didn't understand, the siblings' exchange would have seemed rushed, strange, confusing, even slightly nuts. However, both of the Fentons knew what they were talking about, so it didn't matter.

Danny sped through the skies at a rate no longer measurable towards the site he had first encountered the invisible ghost. And there, no longer invisible to Danny's trained eye, was...

"Youngblood."

He hadn't aged a day. Not that most ghosts seemed to, but that wasn't the point. Last time Danny had seen him, five years ago, Youngblood had been a cowboy, trying to kill Danny's family after making them think Danny was insane. After all, only those with childish or child-like minds could see him, so it seemed like Danny was fighting against nothing. Hallucinating. No, now Youngblood had decided to become a fighter pilot of sorts, a black and green aviator hat on his head replacing the ten gallon hat. His skeletal companion had become the plane, an eye on each wing.

"H-Hey, you're not supposed to see me! You're old!" Youngblood stammered in a nasally voice.

"I'm not _that_ old," Danny muttered. "And besides, why are you a pilot if you can fly?"

"Um..." Youngblood paused to think. He wasn't really sure. He just liked dressing up all cool like pirates and stuff. Once, he'd even been a ninja. That was fun.

While Youngblood was distracted by his own train of thought, Danny used the opportunity to swoop in and hit him with a ghost ray. Unfortunately, the skeleton plane dodged the attack before any real damage was done. "Pay attention, or we'll get captured and you'll have to stop your little charade," the plane sighed.

"Oh, right," Youngblood said, obviously not upset about his distraction. He swooped closer, aiming the skeletal plane's ecto guns at Danny. Danny attempted to dodge left, but was blocked by another building which, because he was going so fast, he slammed into. To make matters worse, Youngblood fired three shots from the ecto guns, hitting Danny in the chest. "Alright, we got him!"

"You mean, 'Boola-Boola,' " the boy's companion deadpanned.

Youngblood stopped in the air again. "What?"

The plane sighed as it delved into explanation. " 'Boola-Boola' is a term that aviators use when they have hit their target dead on."

Youngblood gave the plane a weird look. "Okay, now I _know_ you're making that up. 'Boola-Boola?' Come on!" The boy emitted a nasally laugh, not realizing that he'd been distracted once again. Worse for him, his plane was now distracted as well.

Danny, again seizing the moment, used a ghostly wail on them. Another perk to his enhanced powers was that he no longer needed to be in extreme emotional turmoil to use it, nor did he have to use words at all. He hit the plane dead on, using their weakened state to capture them in the Fenton Thermos.

"Great, just great," came the slightly metallic-sounding voice of Youngblood from within the thermos. "Now he captured us! We had our guns aimed in him and everything! How did we mess this up?"

"The term," sais the slightly annoyed skeleton, "would be that we have our 'fangs sunk in floorboard' and we were caught because we were DISTRACTED!"

"Well, if you didn't keep giving me your stupid fake pilot slang, then we wouldn't BE in this situation, would we?"

Danny snickered to himself as the two argued. Geez, and he thought he and Jazz argued a lot. Though he doubted the two were siblings. He quickly flew back to Fentonworks and released the two back in the Ghost Zone. He flew back up to Jazz's room to find her waiting for him. "So how'd it go?"

Danny grinned. "Pretty damn well, actually," he stated. "If you don't count the gaping wounds." He'd been burned or sliced in at least four different ares on his chest, but another great thing about his powers was that he healed even faster than he had before. With the proper care, of course. In Sam's absense, he had learned a bit of first aid for ghosts, but she was still the best there was. She somehow always managed to take at least part of the pain away. In a weird way, he was excited to have her heal him again. "I'd better go."

"Just be careful," Jazz called after her brother as he flew through the wall and towards his apartment. She sighed. One of these days, he was going to get himself killed. Well, half of him killed.

- - - - - - -

Sam had falled asleep on his bed. Aw.

He refrained from Aw-ing out loud, however, but proceeded to try and wake her by prodding the side of her stomach with his finger. "Sam, wake up," he whispered, sounding like he didn't actually want to wake her. Her hair had fallen over her face and she just looked so cute sleeping. He recalled all of those nights in high school when he would go to her room and just watch her sleep. Stalker? Him? Nah.

"Sam," he said, poking her a bit harder. "Get up."

Sam yawned, stretching her arms above her head before opening her eyes. She looked so sleepy still, what with her disheveled apppearance and I'm-not-awake look on her face. Danny loved it when she looked like this. "Whaaaaat?" she whined, still wanting to be asleep. She hadn't realized where she was or who was waking her at this point

"It's Danny." She sat up quickly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she did so. "It was Youngblood. Care to patch me up?"

Glancing at his wounds, Sam reached in her suitcase for her first aid kit. Yes, she'd brought one along with her. She hadn't planned on seeing Danny so soon, true, but she figured that he'd eventually find her and need some assisstance. "Sure, Danny. It's not like I was _sleeping_ or anything."

**A/N** Yes, "Boola-Boola" and "Fangs Sunk in Floorboard" are actual aviator terms. I found them here (no spaces): h ttp// www. tailhook. org/ AVSLANG. ht m


	7. Where Is She?

**A/N**: Tucker is awesome. That is why this chapter is written mostly from his point of view (except for Danny's brief flashback). I also made it more humorous than usual, mostly because Tucker is funny, but also because I wanted to lighten the mood a bit. This also kind of delves into Tucler's psyche in certain parts, especially when concerning girls. But don't worry, there's still DxS moments; it's just not solely about them this time. Oh, and this is also my longest chapter yet by about 700 words without the A/N or disclaimer, so I'm quite proud of it.

Thanks once again to my wonderful reviewers: RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, lynn138, RyuuMahou, CharmedNightSkye, kpfan72491, Snea, gothangel12345, Tara, DarkMoon1301, Beyonce's Angel925, too-morbid-for-words05, cutereviewgirl, Save danny69, Majestic Moon, bluename, theoneandonlydarkpowderpuff, Fairly Odd Phantom Fan, Writer's-BlockDP, PrincessKimikokitty, katiesparks, Rishi-Rishi, karmatic.luv, AirGirl Phantom, Conny14Sam, white artemis, lovingoxford321, Tech-Man, Megatha, jessicajason, Danneh-'n-Sam-4eva, XxXAmethyst TearsXxX, rage.entertains.the.masses (awesome name, by the way), FredandGeorgetwinsoftheC.O.C.A., and cottongirl619.

I actually have a little favor to ask of you reviewers. If you don't like anything, could you tell me? Or if you have any suggestions or ideas? All of those are welcome. I'd like to thank theoneandonlydarkpowderpuff for the comment on chapter six; it was the only one I'd received so faar that was critical. I'm not asking for flamers, only for constructive criticism. Thanks in advance!

Oh, and also, if you want to know when stuff is coming out, check my profile for information. I usually give a rough estimate of when the next chapters or stories will be out.

**Disclaimer**: I am the sole owner of everything Danny Phantom related. Oh, wait, no. Tere I go, pretending to be Butch Hartman again. I actually own nothing.

**Chapter Seven**

Tucker drummed his fingers on the cold wood of his kitchen counter. _Where are they_? he wondered. Danny and Sam still hadn't shown up. They'd called him a little over an hour ago and said that they'd be over in a couple of minutes but, lo and behold, Tucker had yet to see either of them. Of course, that just left Tucker to his own devices, imagining what they could possibly be doing that would keep them this long..._Oh. Oh god. OH GOD!_ Of course, being Tucker and possessing Tucker's eternally perverted mind, he assumed the "worst" immediately.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of such wrong thoughts...and images...Tucker began to think, not something he often sat down to do. He had always known that Danny and Sam were meant for each other; always had been. Even if they didn't know it yet. That's why Tucker fancied himself the matchmaker of the group and constantly tried to push the two together. But what about Tucker? He hadn't had the luxury of growing up with his soulmate. Or, at least, not to his knowledge. Instead, he'd flitted around in high school chasing every girl in sight, being turned down by nearly every girl in Casper High at one point or another.

And college...well, college was different, but not in a good way. He'd managed to tone down his I-will-chase-anything-wearing-a-skirt attitude, but that hadn't helped him get dates. It hadn't helped him meet anyone special. In his two yearas of college, he'd been on two dates. Maybe. If following a girl into a club and then dancing with her after she'd been drunk for an hour counts. And he was fairly certain that it didn't. But, hey, at least he wasn't obsessive anymore.

It wasn't like he was lonely or anything. He had friends. Not just Sam and Danny anymore, either, but friends that actually attended MIT with him. Granted, they were all the social pariahs, but they managed to make a pretty good group to hang out with as long as the conversation was steered away from LAN parties. No, he wasn't lonely at all. He just...female companionship was not something easily replaced by the company of other techno geeks.

Speaking of which, where was his baby? Tucker looked around the room, but could see no sign of his one true love, the one thing that he knew he could always depend upon fully: his PDA. _Hmm, I wonder where I put her..._Tucker rose from the bar stool he had been sitting on to better scavenge for his lost love.

Okay, now he was beginning to worry. He'd been searching a full 15 minutes, which is about 14 minutes longer than it usually takes, and still no sign of her. He had no idea where she could be and it was freaking him out. "Oh no, what if something horrible happened to her?" he murmured worriedly, frantically turning over the cushions on his couch. Nope, no PDA there. _Crap, crap, crap, where is she?_

He barely registered the sound of his house phone ringing. He glared at it distainfully. "I'm in the middle of something, bother me later," he hissed as though the person on the other line could magically hear him. And with that, he continued his search.

A half hour later, the doorbell rang. Tucker, short one PDA, gloomily walked to the door. "Hey, Tuck," Sam chirped cheerily. Tucker gazed at her warily; since when did Sam do cheery? Or chirp, for that matter? "What's wrong?" she asked upon seeing his crestfallen face.

Tucker sighed. How could they possibly understand? "Oh, it's nothing, really."

Danny raised an eyebrow; he had just walked over from his Mustang. "Well, whatever it is that's bugging you, I'm sure that this'll cheer you up," he said, reaching in his pocket. Tucker merely stared. Nothing could bring him out of this bout of depression except...

Tucker's eyes widened as his glum look disappeared from his face, quickly replaced by a look of sheer joy. "MY BABY! MY PRECIOUS BABY!" he cired, nearly tackling Danny to get to his beloved PDA. Hugging it with a near maniacal grin on his face, he glanced at Danny and Sam who were giving him weird looks. Clearing his throat as he regained his composure, he smirked at his two friends and asked, "So why is it that you guys are two hours late in getting here?"

Sam scowled as Danny blushed a bright red. "You perv, it was nothing like that," she huffed irritatedly. "Danny was attacked by Youngblood and it took awhile to clean him up. He had some pretty nasty gashes. We called here earlier," she said with a pointed look at Tucker, "but no one answered."

A small, almost undetectable smile appeared on Dany's face. _Well, that's not quite all that happened_...

_He hissed as the rubbing alcohol came in contact with his wound. "Nnnnh, Sam, that hurts," he whined softly from his position on the floor. While it was true that she was better than he was at such procedures, it still hurt._

_"Oh, stop whining, you big baby," Sam said, sounding irritated, but only a little bit. She continued to dab carefully at the open wound on Danny's chest. For some reason, it kept leaking ectoplasm despite the fact that Danny had transformed back into his human side. Usually it turned to blood once he became human. There had been a few cases where he'd continued to bleed ectoplasm, but they were few and far between. _I wonder what it is that causes that_, he thought vacantly_.

_Closing his eyes, he silently willed the pain to go away. It wasn't exactly working, though, which became frustrating. He swallowed his yelp at the gauze now wrapped around his entire torso. Damn, even soft bandages were hurting him! _I am pathetic_, he decided miserably._

_"There, all done!" Sam said as she tucked the remaining gauze back into her first aid kit, which she promptly put back in her suitcase. He noticed her pause as she reached in, pulling out a small rectangular piece of technology. "Hmm, Tucker's PDA must have fallen in while I was at his house." She snorted. "I bet he's going crazy without his baby at his side," she snickered._

_Danny started to laugh, but pain shot through his sides at his attempt. Sam noticed him wince as he lay himself down on the floor gently. "Hey, it doesn't hurt _that_ bad, does it?" she queried, bringing her hand down to the tops of the bandages. Danny shivered at the skin-to-skin contact. After all this time, she still had the power to make him quake at the fingertips. Sam seemed to notice this, quickly withdrawing her fingers as a small blush appeared on her face. After a few moments of silence, she grinned and said, "Want me to kiss it and make it all better?"_

_Usually, Danny would have gone wide-eyes at the request, probably phase out of something, and just kind of stare at her. Today, however, he was feeling adventurous. Bringing his hand up slowly to the back of her head, he gently brought her head down to meet his lips. He couldn't exactly sit up or roll to his side in his condition, nor could he have her on top of him, but he'd be damned if he let that get in his way. Sam put her hands out on either side of him to steady herself over above him while he leaned up against the wall a bit to get a more comfortable angle. Slowly, but not too slowly, the kiss became deeper, more passionate. Sam's hand found its way in his hair and Danny's arms snaked around her waist._

_Sam moved from Danny's lips to his neck. He could barely contain himself as she nipped at his pulse, letting out a low moan of satisfaction. Taking her chin in his hand, he captured her lips again in a slightly more desperate way, holding her as though he never wanted to let her go. Because he didn't. He could have stayed that way with her for the rest of his life and be perfectly happy. Minus the pain from his wounds, of course._

_After about a half hour or so of that, Sam reluctantly broke apart. Her hair was a bit messed up, falling in her face, and her lips were swollen, making her absolutely adorable in Danny's eyes, though he would never dare to say those words aloud in front of her. "We," her voice was breathless, "should probably call Tucker. He's probably wondering where we are by now."_

_"Aw, can't we just stay here?" Danny pouted. He used his patented puppy dog face, the one he knew no one could resist. Especially not Sam._

_Using her common sense, Sam simply turned away so that the pout had no effect. _Damn. _"No, we really do need to get going. Here, I'll call him. You go get changed. Your clothes reek of ectoplasm."_

Danny was brought out of his thoughts by Tucker's discontented sigh. "Sorry about that, I was looking for my ba-I mean my PDA." Danny raised an eyebrow. Tucker really _was _going to end up marrying his technology one day, wasn't he?

Tucker cleared his throat embarrassedly. "So, um, what have you guys been up to?" _Please, just answer something that my poor, delicate, not-perverted mind can hear without having nightmares_.

"Well...we've been getting used to living together," Danny replied hesitantly. It made it sound like he and Sam were actually, well, _living together_. "Hey, do you have any of your special hot chocolate?"

Tucker smirked. Ever since they were ten years old, Tucker had been known for his special "Tuck Chocolate." Not that he could ever get anyone else to call it that. Either way, his hot chocolate was the best that any of the trio of friends had had before or since. "Sure, I actually have a couple of cups of the stuff brewing as we speak." He graciously ushered them in, taking special care to place his baby in his driect line of vision. Otherwise, who knows what would happen to her?

He watched as Sam and Danny sat on his couch, putting some awkward space between them. He grinned as he saw them both set their hands in that empty space, neither jumping away and blushing as they would so often do. Instead, they kept their hands on top of each other, quietly smiling to themselves and to each other.

Ha, he always knew his hot chocolate was magic. That's what had managed to bring these two clueless lovebirds to his house yesterday, after all. Well, that's not why Sam was there, but Danny had come in from the cold specifically for that reason; Danny hadn't even known that Sam was home. And now look at them. His eyes widened as his brain kicked into gear. _If it could do that for them...what could it do for me?_

The possibilities, as he saw it, were endless. He'd just need to find the right girl, give her some of his hot chocolate...He shook his head. What was he thinking? His hot chocolate wasn't magic. Please. He knew all the ingredients that he put in there and knew that not one thing used in that hot chocolate was magical in the least bit. It couldn't help him. Ridiculous to think it would.

"Tuck?" Tucker jumped. "Are you okay?" Ah, there was Danny, being the concerned friend. He must have been making a face or something to have them notice.

"Ah, yeah, Danny, I'm fine." Danny didn't look convinced, but he didn't press his friend any further. Tucker readied the hot chocolate and, after quickly burning himself on the hot cups, gave them to his friends. Danny, of course, downed his in a record 4 seconds. Sam had never been that big of a chocolate fan, but, hey, his hot chocolate was magic, so it didn't really matter. She sipped hers slowly, as slowly as she drank her tea from the day before.

Danny looked hungrily in her direction, making Tucker's eyebrows disappear into his beret (he'd grown attached to it during high school and couldn't bear to part with it). _Either that's Sam he's eyeing or her hot chocolate..._

"Saaaam?" he whined prettily. Oh boy, this would be fun. "Can I have your hot chocolate?"

Sam gave him a look. He'd done this same routine every time that they both had hot chocolate; he was always the first to finish and she was always the last, so he always tried to stel hers in an attempt to quell his insatiable thirst for the drink. It was something Tucker had grown to look forward to; a little taste of normalcy in their increasingly weird lives. "No."

"But you don't even liiike chocolate!"

"I like this, though, so no."

"Pleeeeeeeease?" Danny put on his best pout face, his eyes going wide and his bottom lip quivering slightly. Tucker had to hand it to him, the boy had talent.

But so did Sam. She simply closed her eyes so that she would not be affected by him and took a nice long swig of hot chocolate from her cup. Danny's look changed quickly from cute puppy dog pout to indignation. When Sam opened her eyes again, she simply smirked and stuck her tongue out at him as she placed the mug on the coffee table before them.

"Well if you won't give it to me willingly," Danny hissed playfully, "then I shall have to...TAKE IT BY FORCE!" Danny's finger's wiggled slightly, gaining speed with every passing second. Then, in his piece de resistance, he smirked and went invisible.

Sam's eyes widened; she knew she was in for it. "No fair!" she cried, mere seonds before she started convulsing with laughter. "AHAHA DANNY NOOOO!" she squealed, looking like she was having a seizure as invisible hands continued tickling her. Tucker grinned; it was worth it.

Seeing that the actual mug of hot chocolate was left forgotten by the lovebirds, Tucker quickly breezed past them and grabbed the cup for himself, downing it quickly before either of his friends took notice. After all, he hadn't made enough for three cups.

Placing the mug down with a contented sigh, he noticed something strange. The laughter had stopped. And Sam was gone. _Oh, no, this can only mean one thing..._

"YAAAAAAAAH!" yelled an invisible Sam as she pounced on Tucker, pinning him to the ground by sitting on top of him. Becoming visible again, she smirked down at him, noting his fear-stricken face. "So you thought you could steal my hot chocolate and get away with it, eh?" she asked. "Well, I'm not happy about that. And neither is someone else..."

Tucker watched in horror as his baby floated up off of the counter and into mid air. He knew who was controlling it, it was quite obvious. "Danny," he said, his voice stern but quaking, "Put. The PDA. Down."

Danny grinned evilly as he became visible again. "Hmm," he said, sroking his chin in false contemplation. "What should we do with it, Sam? Burn it? Fry it? Make it invisible forever? Or my personal favorite, PDA fricasse?"

"Ooh, Danny, I like the way you think," Sam purred. Ew, Tucker so did not want to hear this. Any of it. No fricasse, no purring. Just...ew. "Fricasse sounds good to me."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Tucker wailed as loudly as he could manage, what with Sam sitting on his lungs. "Do anything you want with me, but do NOT hurt my baby!"

Sam and Danny both gave him a weird look. "Wow, Tuck," Sam deadpanned, "You really _are_ going to end up marrying your technology someday, aren't you?"

"The computer'll be his best man," Danny said, a grin appearing on his face. "That hurts, Tuck. That hurts."

Tucker growled under his breath. "You're GONNA be hurting if you don't give me back my baby!"

Danny sighed. "Fine." He walked over to Tucker and Sam, graciously offering her his arm to help her up. Tucker followed suit without Danny's help, holding his hand out impatiently. With another over-the-top sigh, he placed the PDA back in Tucker's hands, who immediately put it in his pocket. "There. Happy now?"

Tucker responded with a happy purr-like sound as he caressed his baby. "More than you'll ever know," he chirped in a strange singsong voice.

"Right."


	8. Presents?

**A/N** I am SO sorry for not updating. As it said on my profile, I've been really busy with a huge term paper, but I also went on vacation for awhile (not a relaxing one, though). This chapter is kind of the vision of a sleep deprived, I-just-switched-time-zones-and-it's-three-in-the-morning-to-me brain, so forgive it for it's coplete and utter weirdness and randomness. It came out of nowhere, I swear. I actually kind of like it, but it's very different. Forgive me.

Also, if you were to count the words in the chapter, it's very short, but the actual length as well as the content make it seem longer. Again, forgive me.

Thanks to all of my reviewers (there are so many now that it takes forever to lst them) and my very patient readers.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the brand name mentioned later in the chapter. I do own Danny Phantom, though. Oh, wait, I'll get sued for saying that...Never mind, I only own this chapter and the clothes on my back.

**Chapter Eight**

"Hey."

"Hey."

"What are you up to in there?"

"Nothing."

"Come on."

"Nothing."

"Danny. What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me!"

"I already told you, what, three times already? Nothing, I am doing nothing."

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" she asked with a trace of sarcastic malice in her tone.

She heard Danny sigh from the other side of his bedroom door. "Yes, Sam. Really. I am doing absolutely _nothing_."

"Uh huh." She leaned against the door, unable to keep a grin from spreading on her face. She had already won and she knew it. "So if you are in fact doing _nothing_ in there, why can't I come in?"

Silence.

A muffled chuckle burst through the locked door. "Well I wouldn't exactly be doing nothing if you came in here."

Sam froze for a minute, contemplating whether or not she should mention the obvious but unintentional double entendre. She decided against it. "Danny, just let me in!" she shouted as she rubbed her forehead. _The power of intangibility would certainly be nice right about now._

"No. The art of doing nothing is perfected only by actually doing nothing and, if I even got up to open the door to let you into _my_ room, I would, in fact, be doing something instead of nothing."

_He has a point._ "But you're talking to me which is, in itself, doing something and not nothing. Besides, I need my shower stuff which so happens to be in _your_ room, which you've been letting _me_ use since I got here," she stated triumphantly. He would have to get up to open the door in order to give Sam her things which would allow for a chance to dash in the room uninvited and see what he was doing. Carefully, she leaned towards, but not against, the door. He sighed and she distinctly heard the shuffling of feet coming closer to the door.

And closer...

And closer...

And...

He phased his arm through the door and dropped her shower items at her feet.

She narrowed her eyes and turned an icy glare towards the door as though it was the frustrating ghost boy himself. "You suck." She leaned with her back against the door, trying to think of a way to get him out of that damned room of his. Ever since that visit to Tucker's last week, he'd been awfully secretive about _something_ and she wanted to know what that something was. Her hand underneath her chin, she pondered for all of six seconds befre her eyes lit up wickedly. "Well, if you won't come out or let me in, I suppose I'll just have to pay another visit to Tucker."

Sam rolled her eyes when she heard something that sounded suspiciously like "it's about time" coming from behind the door. Now was the time to put her devious plan into action. "I just hope I don't walk in to find him and Jazz going at it _again_," she said loudly, a malicious smirk appearing on her face.

_Three, two, one..._

Danny slammed open the door, his face a mixture of shock and disgust. "WHAT?" Sam used the opportunity to leap into his room and settle herself on the bed. Judging by the look still plastered to his face, he hadn't even seen her. She quickly looked around, taking in her surroundings before Danny had the chance to snap back to reality and toss her out. Nothing. _Shit_.

She sighed. "Take it easy, Danny, Jazz and Tucker haven't been having sex behind your back." _That I'm aware of, anyway_. His face and form visibly relaxed, his shoulders going back to his perpetual slump.

"Ohthankgod," he breathed out, eyes closed. He swerved around to meet her eyes, a slight grin crossing his features. "Oh, and by the way, Sam, one of my newer powers is invisibility from afar. Meaning that even if I'm not touching something..."

"...You can still make it disappear," she finished lamely for him. Well now she felt like an idiot...

At least she did before she spied a pile of receipts on his bedside table. Cocking an eyebrow, she picked one up. "Well, well, what's this? Is Danny slipping in his thoroughness?" The other eyebrow shot up to join the first when she saw them disappear before her eyes, but not before she had seen the contents of one of them. She glanced over at Danny, seeing his eyes shut tightly in concentration. Or fear. One or the other.

"So why exactly did you purhase a 'Hanky Panky Stretch Lace Low-Rider Thong' ?"

"Uh, well, I...that is, um..." Danny scratched the back of his neck as he continued to stutter out unitelligible phrases. Then, he mumbled something low enough that Sam wouldn't have been able to know he was speaking if he hadn't moved his lips.

"What was that?" she asked teasingly.

"Ssachrsmispersnt..."

"What?

"It's a Christmas present," he said louder, his face turning an interesting shade of pink.

"You bought someone a thong for Christmas?" Sam asked, her amusement evident through her tone. "A 'Hanky Panky' brand thong?"

"Maybe," he said embarassedly, his face crossing over to a deep crimson.

"Wait," she said, stopping her previous train of thought as something else dawned on her. "You were just in here wrapping Christmas pressents?"

"Maybe."

She snorted. "You could've just told me that and I would've left you alone."

Danny cocked an eyebrow. "I'm surprised that you haven't asked who the thong is for."

"I have a pretty good idea."

"Oh really?"

"Yup." She grinned. "I'm sure Tucker will love it."

Danny groaned. "Do I really even need to tell you at this point that there is nothing, and I mean _nothing_, going on between me and Tucker?"

"It's 'Tucker and I', first of all. And your 'nothing' always turns out to mean 'something'. After all, you were supposedly doing 'nothing' in your room." Sam's grin widened. He had made her so goddamn curious over nothing, he was going to _pay_.

"That still doesn't mean I'm in love with him or something. Nor does it mean that I'm giving him a thong for Christmas. It's not even a man-thong."

Sam stared at him for a full ten seconds before bursting into laughter, clutching her sides as she collapsed on Danny's bed. "Man-thong?" she managed to choke out amid her giggles.

Danny's face was literally getting redder by the second. "Well, what would _you_ call it, then?" he asked indignantly.

He allowed her to laugh for several more minutes before flicking her on the side of the head. "Ow," she complained, finally coming down from her fit of giggles. She turned to look at him, her eyes once again mischievious. "Well, if not for your beloved Tucker..." she squealed as he hurled a pillow at her face.

"Well, if you'd looked longer," Danny said rther grimly, his mouth set in a straight line, "you would have seen the size. Extra extra extra extra _extra_ large. It's...ugh," he groaned, covering his face with his hand. "It's for the Lunch Lady as a wedding present."

Sam would have howled in laughter, really, she would have, had it not been such a big shock. "Ew," she said, very much disgusted by the idea of the Lunch lady wearing a thong. "Wait, a wedding present? I thought you said it was a Christmas present."

He shrugged. "It's both. They're getting married on Christmas since it's the only day that ghosts absolutely can't fight one another. Or me," he added. "I can't be ripped apart; I'm the best man."

"Are you?" Sam inquired. "Why? I thought they hated you."

"Eh, they've gotten less malevolent since I introduced them."

"_You_ introduced them? Oh, this is bound to be a good story."

"Nah, not really. I was just fightintg the Lunch Lady one day when the Box Ghost came flying in, shouting 'Beware!' The two clapped their eyes on each other and the battle was dropped, just like that."

"Wow. Love at first sight, hmm?"

Danny moved his gaze from her eyes to her lips. "Yeah..."


	9. Midnight Confessions?

**A/N** I am SO sorry for the long wait. As I say in my other stories and on my profile, I was unable to use my computer for awhile. I apologize for making you wait in unbridled anticipation of this chapter. I like it, it's not my absolute favorite, but it serves its purpose.

I love flashbacks and it has been far too long since I have used one in this story, so about half of this chapter is flashback. It ends with a comment made by Danny, fyi. This chapter skips around A LOT with POV but you can basically count on the fact that there is no shifting of POV within a paragraph; it will always be at least a full paragraph in that person's POV before it switches over.

Thank you to all of my awesome reviewers. I cannot believe that this story now has over 100 reviews. You guys are incredible.

**Disclaimer:** I actually own something in this chapter. No, Danny Phantom still does not belong to me; that honor is reserved solely to Butch Hartman. But I own the song "Midnight Confessions"; it is my own work and any unauthorized copying of it is illegal. Half of my family members are lawyers; I will not hesitate in suing your ass off.

**Chapter Nine**

_Sam's backpack felt heavier and heavier as she trudged behind the three girls. She should know their names, really she should, but they slipped her mind nonetheless; she'd never been too good with names and dates and whatnot. One started with a B..._

_All of a sudden, their little group of adventurers came to a dead stop. Pun there, certainly, but not expected. Sam saw the irony as she looked up to see a sign, decaying, wooden, that read "Olfarm Cemetery." _Great, more ghosts. Just what I need.

_The sign looked a bit out of place. Its decrepancy stood out against the newly painted black iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. The trees looked well trimmed and genuinely taken care of. From what she could see, Sam deduced that the caretaker of this cemetery actually cared enough about his job that he didn't let the place go to shambles. That, or his benefactor paid lots of unscheduled visits. Either one was a suitable explanation._

_What Sam wanted to know was why these three had brought her here, of all places._

_She had a history with graveyards, obviously. None of them knew about it, though, and most would believe her if she had said anything about it. Judging from what she had seen in the past four years, this graveyard was far from scary. So what exactly were these girls trying to pull? Did they really expect her to back out? Fat chance. This was her element._

_"So, Sam," began the tallest girl, the one who started with a B. "Before we enter the graveyard, we'd like to explain a bit more about your initiation." Bethany? Brittany? Bertha? Beatrice, perhaps? "Take off your backpack and place it on the ground." Sam glared only for a second before complying. The only reason she knew so much about the girl in front of her - Bridget? - was that Sam knew she was the leader, the guide, the one for whom Sam would have to suck up her pride tonight._

_The second girl, a tall redhead, peered into Sam's signature bat-pack. "First, we need to do an inventory check." Her voice was a little hoarse, probably from the game earlier that day. Inwardly, Sam groaned; college led her to more jock-lovers. Great. "Bailey," the girl called to the first. _Bailey! Knew it started with a B..._"You have the list ready?"_

_Bailey narrowed her eyes at the redhead. "Don't question me. _I _know how this is done;" she hissed with a glare at the girl. She winced; Sam realized that it must have been a blow about her position. But she was still brought along; did that mean that she was being trained to follow in her leader's footsteps? Perhaps that was why the extra two were brought along in the first place. Sam watched through tired eyes as Bailey extracted a piece of paper from her jeans pocket. "Matches?"_

_Sam glanced at her bag. "Yep."_

_"Picture frame?"_

_"Black, as per request."_

_"Candles?"_

_"Fifteen of 'em."_

_"White robe?"_

_"Check."_

_"Sheet and pillow?"_

_"Hard as hell to fit in there, but yeah."_

_Bailey gave Sam a quick grin before reaching into her other pocket. "Alright, Sam, here's the part you don't know about yet," she said, holding up a picture. The quality wasn't good and the girl in it wasn't smiling. _Must be pretty old_, Sam noted. "For years, the Zeta Sigma Tau sorority has welcomed new recruits, but we have always been determined to weed the pool of applicants down to the dedicated few that actually join each year."_

Why am I joining a sorority?_ Sam asked herself for the umpteenth time. She had sworn that she would never enter the greek system during college. But Zeta Sigma Tau drew her in from the start with stories of adopting turtles and whales, sponsoring trips to Washington DC for any worthwhile rallies, buying hundreds of acres of rainforest that bulldozers could never destroy, and sending members around the world to aid lesser-developed countries. Sam was hooked and she knew it._

_"Each year," Bailey continued, oblivious to Sam's momentary lapse of thought, "we research the, ahem, inhabitants of this graveyard and come up with pictures of the inhabitants. Anyone who wishes to join must spend a night on their grave in order to pass the initiation."_

_Sam looked at the girl blankly. "And what does this have to do with the sorority goals?"_

_The third girl finally spoke in a feather-soft voice. "It's an experience that connects us all. We also usually get some personal sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from it."_

_"From spending the night on a grave?"_

_The third girl's lips quirked in a tight-lipped grin. "You'll see what I mean."_

_Bailey nodded to the other girls as they picked up Sam's belongings. "Sam, you wait here. Put on the robe while we go set everything up. We should be back in a few minutes."_

_This would be the first time in a long time that Sam willingly wore anything lighter than navy blue. Grudgingly, she put the robe on over her nightclothes (navy, actually) and waited. Glancing at her watch, she noted that it only took them about seven minutes to return. Silently, the trio of girls led Sam to where she would be spending the night._

_The grave site was surrounded by the candles in a wide, sweeping circle of about fifteen feet in diameter. The sheet and pillow were set in such a way as to be lying directly over the patch of dirt that signified a coffin hidden beneath it, the pillow up against the headstone. It almost seemed as though it was Sam's own personal coffin._

_"We'll see you in the morning, Sam." And with that, the three were gone._

_Sam took a moment to look around her. This place, if any, would be teeming with ghosts, so she had to be on alert. Somehow, she'd managed to hide the Jack-o-Nine-Tails in her pajama's right pant leg without any of the girls noticing. Plus, she'd spent a lot of time watching Danny...er, watching Danny's ghost fighting. While he fought ghosts. Yeah...But anyway, she knew how to do this. Besides, spooky was her thing._

_She lay back, her arms crossed behind her head (she'd considered crossing them in front of her to complete the image, but it wasn't all that comfortable). _So what am I supposed to do here? Just sit and wait for dawn?_ Unfortunately, that seemed to be the case._

_An owl was in a tree not too far from her, looking down with its large round eyes. _If that bird shits on me, I swear...

_New moon tonight; starlight and the candles were the only things that her vision really allowed her to see. Bailey and the other two had taken the flashlight back with them. She rolled on her side and spread out an arm to grab hold of one of the candles spread out before her. Eh, she could get some reading done so long as she didn't burn her book by accident. Or her hair, or something like that. Sam dug through her backpack before she realized that her new Isaac Asimov book was right where she left it: in her dorm room, on her bed._

_For some reason, the picture caught Sam's eye. Slowly, she reached forward and placed the candle in front of the frame. The folds in the paper combined with the flicker of the candlelight almost made the girl seem as though she was smiling. The girl had long, almost waist-length dark hair and an exaggerated widows peak. _Weren't they supposed to be signs of beauty back then? _Sam wondered as she touched the tip of her own widow's peak. _I guess times change._ She wore a modest dress, below the knee but above the ankle. It almost looked as though she'd outgrown it but continued to wear it anyway. Maybe that was why she wasn't smiling; her dress looked like a freaking corset._

_Her eyes were what intrigued Sam the most. There seemed to be so many different emotions floating around in them: sadness, pain, anger, and something else. It was something that Sam couldn't quite place._

_"Who is she?" Sam murmured quietly. Then she rolled her eyes, a humorless grin on her face. "Duh, I know where I could find that out." She brushed aside the weeds from the gravestone and held her candle up to it._

Marilee Samantha Hawkins

April 20, 1880 - May 14, 1899

The rain above washes away your pain

While the whispered winds cry our own

Marilee Samantha Hawkins_, Sam thought. _I wonder why she looks so sad. _Looking back at the date, Sam realized that the girl was about her age when she died; why had someone so young died? Illness? Murder? Suicide?_

_Could she read? Sam knew that not a lot of women from that time period could, but Marilee's eyes were intelligent. She might not have had a chance to learn, but Sam wouldn't put it past her to teach herself. What had her family been like? Big or small? Sam bet they didn't treat her as respectfully as they should have; Marilee was probably always arguing, or, considering the time period, always wanting to argue, with anything that her mother said._

_Then it hit her. Here they both were, the same place even after over two hundred years. Two Samanthas in one grave_.

"Wow, that's one hell of a story," Danny commented. It was the coldest day of the winter so far, a lovely -3 degrees, and his heat wasn't working to the best of its ability, so the apartment felt like it was about 20 degrees. Even Danny, with his advanced tolerance to cold, was shivering. Sam was cocooned in the six blankets that Danny owned and her black sweats, but she was still shivering as much as Danny.

"Yeah. It turned out that the third girl, Emmeline, was right." Sam took a moment to reposition herself on the couch. It was faux leather so she had to sit on the blankets in order to keep her sensitive skin from touching the cold surface. "That's what launched me into songwriting."

"Really?" Danny asked. He never knew she wrote, but then again, he hadn't seen her in the two years that she'd started. Personally, he was devoid of all semblance of creativity with the English language; visual art was something he was much better at, if doodling counted as an art form. "Can I hear one?"

Sam grimaced. _He's going to think it's stupid. _"I don't know..."

"Oh come on. I'll call Tuck and force him to make hot chocolate," Danny bargained, his eyebrows going up and down. He looked so awkward that Sam had to laugh.

"Okay, fine. This one's called _Midnight Confessions_. I actually wrote it right after the whole graveyard thing." She cleared her throat before she started to sing:

"_I saw the demons as they rose from the ash.  
__I felt the graveyard soil quake beneath my feet.  
__I saw the wandring souls, caught in the crossfire;  
__I saw the wandring spirits, cursed to damnation._"

Danny stared. Not only did he not know that Sam wrote, but apparently he'd never heard her sing, either. Her voice was quiet and shook slightly from the cold, but it blended perfectly into the haunting melody. In his mind's eye, he could almost see the conflict she described from her night at the graveyard. It was very...Sam.

_"Opening our hearts for consumption,  
__Devouring our last chance at life._"

To say that she was nervous would be an understatement. She'd never sang her own songs for anyone else before, instead preferring to keep them her own private joys. Let's just say that her voice had more vibrato to it than usual. She wasn't used to giving herself so freely to someone else, even one of her best friends. She felt exposed.

"_Walking the graveyard after midnight  
__Beneath a darkening new moon.  
__Beware, the whispered winds are crying  
__And remember - don't let them get you_."

The song was short, but the silence left in its wake was long. Neither Danny nor Sam knew exactly what to say; Sam was nervously avoiding his eyes while Danny just didn't know how to express what he was feeling right then without screwing something up.

Suddenly, almost without warning, Danny launched forward. One arm circled around Sam's back while the other turned her by the chin to face him as his lips locked firmly onto hers. Sam's eyes widened before they closed softly, allowing her to fall deeper into the kiss. She took his lower lip into her mouth and sucked on it lightly, earning a low moan from Danny as he opened his mouth to her. The arm around her back came to rest at the nape of her neck with his fingers lightly fisting in her hair.

_Wait a second_, Sam thought as she opened one eye. _I can't move_. The blankets she had so carefully positioned around her were now keeping her entire body, minus her head and neck, bound in place with limited mobility. Without breaking the kiss as Danny slid his tongue past her lips, she began to struggle against her confines. Unfortunately, she had taken great pains to keep herself warm and couldn't escape from her cocoon easily.

Danny had yet to notice anything wrong. He was drowning in the feel of her lips against his, of her tongue dancing with his, of her skin under his fingertips. It wasn't until she started to squirm that Danny hestitantly stopped his attentions. _Does she not...want this like I do?_ Fearing the worst, he shakily asked, "Sam?"

Sam paid him little attention as she forcibly pushed away the folds of the blankets. Or attempted to. Her hands found the edges of one blanket and pushed through to the next layer and the next. After a half minute more, she'd managed to free herself from her bindings. Looking at Danny, her heart swelled. He looked hurt, like she'd rejected him or...Sam mentally slapped herself on the forehead. _Duh! He thought I was trying to get away from him!_ "Idiot," she breathed before launching herself at him.

The force knocked Danny back against the couch. Sensing his surprise, Sam took advantage of the moment and slipped her tongue into his mouth as her arms clasped around his neck. _He tastes so fresh._ Danny moaned as their tongue touched, snaking his arms around her waist. His fingers sensuously traced over her spine before a hand came to the nape of her neck. Slowly, he moved across her jawline, leaving butterfly kisses in his wake. Sam gasped as he nipped at her earlobe before dipping into the shell of her ear.

In their passion, neither heard the jingle of keys from just outside, nor did they hear the door unlock. They did hear the door open and they did see the shocked, but ever amused, face of Tucker.

In his defense, Tucker had to pause and decide what his next move would be. He had not expected to find his two friends practically going at it on the couch, no matter how much he teased them. His first instinct was to close the door, walk away, and never mention it again. The "logical" part of his brain reminded him that he had already ruined the moment, so he had no real guilt when he made his decision.

"Well I came in to see if you guys needed some hot chocolate to warm you up, but it looks like you've found a better way to keep warm."

He watched in morbid amusement as Sam and Danny locked wide eyed gazes with each other and quickly moved to opposite sides of the couch, as though they thought he could ever erase that mental picture. Both were spotting matching shades of red and were now avoiding each others' gaze. Tucker sighed internally; something or someone (usually him) always had to interrupt, didn't it? From the frustrated look on Danny's face, he could tell that his friend was thinking along those same lines.

"Uh," Sam said after clearing her throat, "we were actually just going to call you."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt that."

Sam's blush darkened a shade. "No, we had been planning to, but..."

She stopped when Tucker raised a hand to silence her. "Say no more. I just came to offer my services. But," he grinned, "I think you like what Danny has to offer a bit more."

Without actually turning his head, Danny looked in his direction and glared so fiercely that Tucker felt the room temperature drop another five degrees. Tucker laughed nervously with a wince as he said, "Yeah, I should be going..." And with that, he darted out the door and prayed that Danny would not come after him.

The tension was thick enough that even a meat cleaver couldn't cut through it. A minute passed in silence, followed by another. Danny was drumming his fingers on his knee while Sam was just sitting very still.

"So," Danny said in attempts to break the silence, "I can see why he was called Bad Luck Tuck. His timing sucks."

This earned him a weak grin from Sam. "Yeah."

Silence again.

"Um," Danny started after another minute. "Do you have a dress for the wedding yet?"

"Uh, no. I haven't had a chance to go shopping yet. And you know how much I _love_ shopping." Sam's voice was dripping with sarcasm as she rolled her eyes. "I guess I shouldn't put it off too much longer, though. You want to come with me tomorrow?"

"Sure." Danny glanced at his clock. "Hey, are you hungry?" Sam nodded. "There's a really great Chinese place a few miles up the road. You interested?"

Sam's eyes lit up at the word 'Chinese.' Chinese food was her favorite, her absolute favorite. "Do you even have to ask?" The nervous tension wasn't broken, but it had lessened. And both were okay with that, though they both continued to silently curse Tucker and his horrible sense of timing for the rest of the night.


	10. Pretty In Pink?

**A/N** Long wait. Sorry about that; my muse just didn't strike me for a long time there. As to the character I rather abruptly introduce in this chapter, I;ve always had a soft spot for her. She's never been really spectacularly evil, but she's done some pretty mean stuff. I like her better as I portray her here, most definitely, but I can certainly see her turning out this way if this was how the circumstances played out. Confused yet? You should be.

I'd like to thank all of the wonderful people who reviewed my last chapter (I'll only name people by chapter now as there's just too many of you), namely A. LaRosa (I love your work, by the way), your loving sister (she is my loving sister and she just got herself a penname WOO), Smallvillecrazy, Kats02980416, Alchemistress, darkdragon, kpfan72491, cutereviewgirl, and karmatic.luv. You guys are incredible.

Just as a warning, the purposes of this chapter are two: introduce the new character into the story and get Sam a dress. Therefore, there is only one blushy moment and no stolen kisses. Don't be upset, they can't be every chapter or I'd throw up writing it and no one wants a sick author on their hands.

**Disclaimer**: Danny Phantom is not mine. Neither is the name Pretty in Pink (movie), but the store itself is mine. Oh, and the dress isn't mine, either.

**Chapter 10**

"You did _not_ just bring me to a dress store called Pretty in Pink." Sam's face was pale, paler than usual, and she looked like she was going to punch someone. Namely, Danny. "This is just a bad dream, a nightmare, and it will pass as soon as I woke up." She swiftly turned her glare on Danny. "At least, you'd better hope so or you might be losing some important appendages sometime in the _very_ near future."

Danny held his hands out in a placating manner, the look on his face comical. "Hey, it's supposed to be the best place within driving range for dresses, so please don't hurt me?" The last part was half-whined, half-pleaded.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, the best place to look like a poofy pastel princess. And how would you know that this is the best dress shop, hmm?"

"Uh, internet?"

"Riiight."

Taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the array of obnoxious pink poofballs, Sam grabbed Danny's wrist and dragged him into the store. The decor actually wasn't half as bad as she'd thought. The walls were painted a nice shade of blue; light enough to make the room seem larger, but dark enough to make it feel cozy. Yes, the dresses in the front of the store were basically up to par with Sam's expectations, but she saw that the racks further back contained dresses that actually looked halway decent. To her right was a bored-looking clerk, reading a magazine. _Hey, at least she's not up in my face and saying how good I'd look in pink_, Sam though rather grimly.

"Excuse me." The clerk looked up from her magazine, visibly annoyed. "I'm looking for a dress."

"No shit, sherlock," the clerk replied in a monotone, her pixie-cut blonde hair falling into her eyes. Sam frowned, never a good sign. "Dress stores usually attract people who want dresses."

By this point, Danny was frowning, too. He was just about to butt in with a comment of his own, his mouth open and a finger pointed, but Sam interrupted him. "Look, I just want a dress. If you can lift yourself off your ass for a minute or two, then by all means, I welcome your company. If not, tell me now and spare me the opportunity to waste more words on you."

The girl actually looked amused, one of the corners of her mouth lifting slightly. "Most people just go off to find their own crap after that kind of show," she said, her grin already widening. She put her magazine down on the counter and held out a hand. "I'm Star."

Both Sam and Danny's jaws dropped. _This is Star?_ they both wondered. She had moved away in junior year when her father was given the chance to become a partner of a prestigious law firm in Virginia and hadn't seen or heard of her since. Apparently, she'd changed more than they'd thought. No longer was she the perky, bubbly popular girl who clinged to Paulina and the rest of the A-List crowd; instead, she seemed more comfortable with herself; less self-conscious.

_I guess everyone changes_, Danny mused.

"Star?" Sam finally squeaked. "Since when did you have a sense of humor? And when did you move back?"

Star gave her a weird look. "How do you know I moved away?" she asked. "Do I know you?"

Danny took a step forward. "Do you remember when I dated Paulina?" he asked, nervously scratching the back of his neck. He wasn't completely sure how Sam would react to the memory, but she continued to stare at Star. "You dragged Tucker along with you for a bit and this one here," he said, poking Sam in the side, "hung out with Kwan. At least until Paulina dumped me."

Star's confused expression remained for a few seconds before recognition dawned on her face. "You," she gasped, pointing between the two. "You're Danny Fenton and Sam Manson! Holy shit!" She actually grabbed the counter behind her and leaned back on it for some support.

Sam cracked a smile. "You've certainly changed since high school," she drawled. "How's life been treating you?"

Star quickly recovered from her momentary shock, shaking her head. "Not bad, actually," she managed. "And as for your first question, I decided to give Amity a shot and come here for college. I haven't regretted it too much."

"Which college?" Danny cut in.

"Park College. I'm a major in fashion and business." Star's eyes gleamed as she spoke. "I want to open my own line of clothing one day, but if that doesn't work out, I'll always have the business aspect to fall back on. Until then," she lost most of the sparkle in her eye, "I'm stuck here."

Danny furrowed his brow. "You go to Park College, too? I haven't seen you around at all in the past two years."

"Well last year, I went to LeFay College, but it sucked to go to school so close to my parents," she explained. "So I transferred. It's a big college, so we wouldn't have necessarily bumped into one another last semester. Even if we did, we probably wouldn't have recognized each other."

"Makes sense," Danny nodded.

"How's Pauline been?" Sam asked amusedly with only a tiny hint of malice.

Star rolled her eyes. "Don't even ask," she said tiredly. "She stopped calling a week and a half after I moved. Last I heard of her, she was still mooching off her parents and hanging out with ost of the old crowd. Except for Kwan, anyway." She suddenly hopped up on the counter, her hand in her hands. "But enough about me. What about you two? Married yet?"

Through his blush and embarrassment, Danny summoned the courage to say, "Nope. Not yet."

Sam's blush only deepened. She aimed her best death glare at Danny and smacked him in the head. "Don't make stupid jokes," she threatened. "They aren't funny and no one appreciates them."

Danny gulped and nodded. "Got it. But," he added with a smirk, "who said I was joking?"

In front of them and yet unnoticed by the two over their bickering, Star was smiling. They might as well have been married; they sure acted like it. All the freaking time. It was just as she remembered them back in high school. High school...she bit her lip. She was a bitch back then. An untouchable popular bitch. Virginia had kicked some sense into her; Star had had to start over completely and, as such, decided that she could be the person she wanted to be instead of the person she had become. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience to have most people openly scorn or ignore her, but she had made some friends, some really good friends. She'd even kept in touch with one. She smiled at the thought; Kwan was a big reason she decided to transfer. She had missed his company far too much; they'd tried dating once, but their relationship had eventually evolved into one of brotherly and sisterly affection. Star really didn't know where she'd be without his incredible advice and patience, but she could never date him again.

Back to the situation at hand. Star knew that she'd often been downright hateful to the two people before her. It didn't seem right to her; they had never done anything worthy of her rejection other than being unpopular. She hated how shallow she had been back then. But Star reasoned that, if they could be this happy to see her, then they couldn't hate her. Right?

Danny and Sam were still arguing, so Star cleared her throat. "Uh, sorry to interrupt," she said, though neither looked particular disappointed or displeased that their fighting was over. Star took a deep, shuddering breath and continued. "I just want to say that I'm sorry for how I acted toward you both back in the day. Neither of you really deserved it and - "

"It's okay," Danny interrupted. "Pretty much everyone treated us like that, not that that's an excuse. But we were all younger and we've matured since then. So no harm done."

Star and Sam both gawked at Danny. "Since when are you so profound, Fenton?" Star asked with a smile.

Danny shrugged. "It's not profound, just the truth."

"So," Sam said, clearing her throat slightly, "are we getting a dress or what?"

"Right." Star turned to the back of the room and started looking through different dresses. "What's the occassion?"

"Wedding. Black tie."

"Not yours, I assume?" Star ased with a grin on her face.

Sam sighed noisily. "No, it's a...a friend's."

Star nodded. "Any colors in mind?"

Sam thought for a minute. What colors did she usually see ghosts wearing. "Black, definitely. And maybe some red or green. Or purple."

Sam and Danny waited for a few minutes while Star picked out dresses for Sam to try on. She came back with five dresses in her arms and handed them to Sam, directing her to the changing rooms.

The first was completely black. The fabric went down to her ankles, the bottom very jagged and ripped looking. Her sleeves almost covered her hands, but the material dripped down and hung about a foot beneath her hands. The only redeeming quality Danny could see in the not-too-tight, not-short-enough dress was that the neckline dipped fairly low. Star winced and commented, "No, you look a bit too much like Morticia Addams in that."

"And what's wrong with that?" Sam asked as she was hustled back in the dressing room.

The next dress was a red salsa dress. It was kind of a halter, two straps hooking in the back, but they weren't the support. The fabric clinged to her body and mid-thigh, rained down ruffles that weren't too poofy. Danny liked this one much better, but Sam looked a bit uncomfortable. "It's really tight," she gasped out, clutching her ribcage. "I don't even know how I managed to zip it up. Do you have it a size or two bigger?"

Star checked the racks and the computer, but it was apparently the only dres within three sizes of Sam's actual dress size. To Danny's great disappointment, she went back in to try on the next dress.

The third dress nearly knocked Danny's eyes. It wasn't nearly as revealing as the salsa dress, but it looked like it was made for Sam. It looked like something right out of the Renaissance, which Danny knew to be Sam's favorite period in history. The blood red bodice fit snugly, accentuating all the right curves. It was floorlength red with black snowflakes here and there; the black sleeves were long as well, but they, too, were snug and looked comfortable. Sam looked like a queen.

"Get that one," Danny quickly said before Star or Sam could appraise it.

Sam twirled, smiling when she saw that the dress flared out. "I really like this one, Star. Really comfy but gorgeous, too. How much is it?"

Star checked the price on the computer. "Five hundred bucks," she said. "A bit much for a dress, but Sam, that really looks stunning on you. And I'm not just saying that because I get commissions; that dress looks great on you."

Still smiling, Sam fished around in her purse for her wallet, pulling out a credit card before turning to Danny. "So you really like this one, huh?"

Danny could only nod. Sam smirked; she'd never managed to make him speechless before. Stuttering, yes, but speechless was an entirely new concept. And if it was the dress that did it, then who was she to ignore it for something else?

After the dress had been purchased and bagged, Star called out to Danny and Sam before they left. "Hey, don't make yourself strangers around here. I could use the company."

"Will do, Star," Sam called back before stepping out the door. Star watched them go, a sense of nostalgia washing over her. She really had been horrible to them, hadn't she? Tucker worst of all; that time they dated, she'd basically made him her personal slave. Going back to her magazine, she vaguely wondered how Tucker was doing these days. _Maybe we'll run into one another sometime_, she thought as she flipped a page in her magazine. _I need to apologize to him, too, after all. Right?_

**A/N** Star is fun to work with. Also, if you want to see Sam's dress, here it is (delete the spaces): http :// www. blanchesplace. com/ sitebuildercontent/ sitebuilderpictures/ PIRATEDRESS. jpg


	11. Will It Work?

**A/N** My muse is so freaking picky. I mean, honestly, I haven't updated in forever and it's all my muse's fault. Well, I was also away without access to my computer for awhile, so that may have something to do with it. Oh, well.

This is short, but sweet and I happen to love it. And you'll get your fill of DS fluff at the end.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. There's like 130 some reviews and I couldn't be happier! Thank you all so much.

**Disclaimer**: No one mentioned in this chapter is mine. Except for Tucker because I have his heart thump thump thuimp thump.

**Chapter 11**

Tucker was out like a light. Never mind the fact that he was currently outside, on a bench no less, in the middle of a park where anyone could see him. It was snowing, too. But did Tucker care? Hell no! He'd already locked his baby away in his inside coat pocket where no mugger would find it. And the bench just looked so nice...so inviting...so sleeepyyy...

And so Tucker slept on, through the snow and the wind, for nearly an hour before someone fell on top of him.

It felt like his lungs were just poked with a needle. Tucker expelled every bit of air he had before gasping some up to replace it. He shot a dirty look at whomever had just nearly fucking killed him - the nerve of them! - before realizing that she was in nearly as bad a shape as he was.

Her blonde hair was mixed with a tinge of red; Tucker saw that she had a small cut on her forehead where she'd hit the corner of the bench. Her eyes were still closed, whether out of pain or out of unconsciousness he did not know. Sighing, he lifted her up to his makeshift bed and proceeded to wipe her forehead with some snow, hoping that it would clean the cut well enough.

A minute or so later, her azure eyes opened and locked on his. A wave passed between them, a shock, if you will, of understanding, thought neither recognized the other. She slowly lifted her head from the bench before gently prodding her cut with a finger.

"Um," the girl started, rubbing her sore head, "Thanks."

"No problem," Tucker replied in a nearly monotone voice.

"Sorry, but...do I know you? I used to live here and you look pretty familiar." The girl was now twisting a short strand of hair between her fingers. Pretty hair...shiny...Tucker mentally shook his head. What the hell was he doing? Certainly not thinking about the girl in front of him in any non-platonic manner, no way! But she was kind of cute...eh, whatever. As though she'd like him.

"I dunno." He felt like smacking himself.

"Ah. Okay." She was obviously amused by aforementioned liguistic skills. "Well, I'm Star."

"Star." _Star. Pretty name. Pretty hair...shiny...wait. Wait. Star? STAR? As in, satellite Star?_ "Satellite?"

She gave him a weird look at that. "No. Star. Like the shiny things in the sky." Great, now she thought he was an idiot. Lovely day this was turning out to be.

"No, no, wait. I'm Tucker. Tucker Foley. Remember me?"

"Tucker?" Star looked like she'd seen a ghost. _THIS is Tucker Foley? Damn, if I'd have known..._"Wow, small world. How's life been since I left?"

Tucker supressed a groan. Yes, his life had been smashing up to this point, hadn't it? Not a date since...ever. "Fine, fine," he said hurriedly. "Nothing worth elaborating on. And yourself?"

"Oh. Um, I work at a dress shop?"

"Which one?"

"Pretty in Pink?"

"Why are you saying everything like it's a question?"

"...Because I can?"

Tucker raised an eyebrow. Hmm, perhaps Star had gotten a sense of humor since she'd been gone. She'd definitely stocked up on her sarcasm. Maybe Sam had given her lessons..."Right. Okay. What college?" He widened his eyes as he realized his possible mistake. "That is, if you go to college. I mean, we don't all get into MIT, right? I mean...shit. Uh, that's not what I meant to say. If the dress shop is full time, then congrats, I don't look down on you for it and I wish you the best of luck in all of your dress-selling endeavors!" He said it so fast that he felt almost as thought his tongue would just hop out of his mouth and slap a resignation on his face. Hopefully he'd spoken fast enough that Star didn't actually understand any of his own idiocy...

Maybe?

"...what?"

Tucker decided that perhaps today didn't suck as bad as it could. "Never mind," he said quickly. "So why'd you move back? Last I heard you were saddled back in good ole VA."

Star's eyes brightened. "Well, I haven't really moved back. I'm at Park College. Fashion and business. What about you?"

"Well I'm just back for break," he relayed. He puffed out his chest a bit before continuing. "I'm at MIT for computer programming and AI work."

"AI? Artificial Intelligence, right? WHat are you doing with that?"

Tucker grinned. This one was a favorite topic of his. He just hoped Star could keep up well enough. "Funny you should ask..."

- - - - - - -

"And then he comes up to me _again_ and says, 'Hey, baby, if I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip _your _genes.' That time, I had to slap him. I _had _to."

An hour later, Tucker and Star were still happily chatting away on that same park bench. Star was recounting tales of her life at LeFay with Tucker entranced, though not just by her words. _Damn, the girl is _funny.

"That is so lame. I mean seriously, where'd he get _that _line? Even my own clever witticisms weren't that bad," Tucker snorted.

Star rolled her eyes. "I know. I mean, he could've at least come up with something less 'I want to bang you' and a bit sweeter, right?"

Tucker paused for a moment before whipping out his devilishly good looking smirk. "I think I know exactly what you're talking about," he said, a spark of mischief present in his eye. He clasped her hands and turned her to face him completely. "Baby," he winked, "if you were C6 and I was H12, then all we'd need is the air we breathe to be sweeter than sugar."

Star was struck silent. Tucker watched as different emotions played out across her face, not seeming to decide on what was right for the occasion. "That," she finally began, sounding a bit breathy, "would have been much better." She stared at him for a moment more before continuing. "It's a good thing I know basic chemistry. When did your pickup lines get good?"

"College, I guess, " Tucker shrugged. "That's when the lines I heard actually evolved from the stupid ones I used to hear, so I adapted."

"Wow. So you must get all the girls in college."

Tucker could've sworn he heard a question in that statement. "Yeah, right," he muttered. "I'm as popular with the ladies as I've ever been, aka not at all."

"Well, "Star started, scooting a bit closer to him on the bench, "I don't see how that's possible. You're funny, a great conversationalist, smart, pretty cute, and now you have decent pickup lines to boot! Where could you possibly go wrong with all of that on your side?"

"It's just not that easy," Tucker sighed. "All of the girls still seem to go for the same type that were girl-magnets back in high school. Just a bit smarter and more mature."

"Not all girls."

Tucker looked up to see Star gazing at him intently, her eyes a few shades darker. _She really is pretty. And funny. And fun to talk to. And interesting. And smart enough to get one of my pic...uh, witticisms. _Suddenly, he remembered something he'd wanted to save for just this type of occasion. Something that was guaranteed to make her fall for him and stay fallen.

"Hey, you look like you're a bit cold. Want to come back to my house for a bit? I make a mean cup of hot chocolate."

Star smiled shyly, looking down at her feet before sweeping her gaze back up to his eyes. "That sounds great, Tucker. Where do you live again?"

"Oh, it's not far from here, just off Pedonia."

And with that, they were off.

- - - - - - -

Meanwhile, in the bushes behind the bench, two voices were laughing.

"I knew she'd like him! Knew it!"

"I can't believe she went with him after that glucose line. I mean, really, that's just nerdy."

"Well, she said she wanted something sweet, right?"

"Yeah, I guess she did."

"How about you, Sam?"

"What?"

"What do you want?"

"Right now?"

"Mmhmm."

"...Some hot chocolate would be nice."

"...Oh. Well, we can't exactly just barge in on them. This is the first date Tucker's ever had, if you can count this as a date. But I mean he's taking her back to his house and stuff, so - "

"Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

"My pleasure."


	12. Cucumberbund?

**A/N** Okay, I hate me. You hate me. We all hate me. For more than one reason, too. One: This is so incredibly freaking late coming out. Two: It's the shortest chapter yet because I really just don't have fun working on this story anymore (sorry, but it's true). Three: It sucks. I will admit this. It was written under a cmplete and total lack of sleep, sanity, and free-will. I really just wanted to get something out to set up the next chapter, which will be the second-to-last one. I'm really just done with this story. It jumped the shark after the chapter with Tucker losing his PDA. And four: I'm turning it into another Christmas story. WHY? I already have a good one that I like. Why this too? Is it because I am the master of all things cheesy and cliche? I DON'T KNOW!

Please, don't hate me for this chapter. It actually is just a set up for the next one, which should come out by mid-November. I know it's not my best work, but it's this or nothing right now. I may eventually go back and edit it better.

Props to those of you who, miraculously, still believe that this is a half-decent story.

**Disclaimer:**I own nothing. Nothing at all.

**Chapter Twelve**

"Aw, come on, do I really have to?"

"If I'm wearing that dress, then yes."

"But Saaaam..."

"Don't you 'but Sam' me, you know that you should. It's black tie."

"But I'm a ghost. How dressed up do you think the other ghosts will be?"

"Since it actually said 'black tie' on that invitation you showed me? I'd say they'll all be in _black tie_."

"But - "

"Danny." Sam turned around to face Danny with her hands on her hips, her makeup only half-done. "It's black tie. You are the best man. You are wearing a tux. And a tie," she added as an afterthought.

Pouting, Danny crossed his arms and turned his head away from her as he stuck out his lower lip. "Fine," he said beligerently. "I'll wear the stupid tux. As soon as I figure out how to get it on."

Sam rolled her eyes. Was he always this difficult or was he just in a special mood today? "Please. I know you've worn a tux before."

"Nope," he replied, shaking his head. "Never have, never wanted to have to. And yet here we are."

"You've never worn a tux?" Sam asked, her eyebrow raising. "What about that one time at my Bat Mitzvah?"

"Uh," Danny began eloquently, his hand reaching back to scratch his neck in his trademark fashion. "No, that wasn't a tux. Just a suit with a cucumberbund or whatever the hell they're called."

"What did you just say?" Sam had both disbelief and laughter in her voice, which made Danny slightly suspicious.

"Um, whatever the hell they're called?"

"No, before that."

"Cucumberbund?"

"Yes, Just wanted to make sure I heard that right." Sam turned away again, her shoulders shaking silently.

"Why? What's wrong with that? All tuxes have one. Right?"

"A...cucumberbund?"

"Yeah. Never understood why they were called that. Sounds like a pretty stupid name to me." Finally, Sam just couldn't hold it in any longer. She started laughing hard enough that she was shaking and Danny, of course, was puzzled by her behavior. After all, clueless once is clueless forever in some respects. "Sam?"

She took a few minutes to calm down before wiping her dry eyes in pantomime. "Cumberbund," she choked out. For some reason, she found this entire conversation incredibly funny.

"What?"

"_Cumber_bund, Danny. Not _cucumber_bund."

"Oh." Danny didn't see why this was so amusing. After all, he still had to wear one of those man-corsets, didn't he? For that is what they were - man-corsets, designed by feminists to give power back to the women and degrade the men. "Okay. Whatever. It's still not going to be fun to walk around wearing one."

Sam rolled her eyes as she put the finishing touches on her makeup. Sometimes Danny reminded her uncannily of her three-year-old cousin. "Tough luck, Danny boy. All tuxes come with a...cucumberbund."

"Shut up."

"Nah, it's too much fun to annoy you."

So Danny reluctantly donned the dreaded tux somehow. Sam had to help him a bit, of course, when he somehow managed to get both of his arms caught in the same sleeve. She had to remind him that he had ghostly powers, including intangibility, to which he bluched and grinned sheepishly before phasing his left arm out. He sat impatiently for what seemed like hours to him as Sam finished getting dressed and managed to slip off that uncomfortable noose of a tie to replace it with a much more comfortable clip-on version. When she finally did emerge, she looked absolutely stunning. She and Danny were just about to leave when he realized he had forgotten something important.

"Hey, Sam, I'll be right back. I forgot...the present in the bedroom."

Danny rushed back into the room, his mind scolding him for nerly forgetting while also congradulating him on the fact that he hadn't. He scanned the room, eyes darting left and right before he hovered slightly, her right hand phasing through the ceiling without going through the floor of the apartment above his own. Here was where he'd hidden his gift for Sam. It was tough looking for something that someone like her, who could have anything in the world, and he'd spent a lot of time agonizing over it. Even though she didn't technically celebrate Christmas, he knew that she would still appreciate the gesture.

And the gift. He hoped.

Quickly, he stuffed it into the pocket of his tux before picking up the hideously-wrapped present for the soon-to-be newly-weds. Everytime he got near the thing, he shuddered. He could barely stand touching it with the wrapping, knowing what lie beneath, which is why he shoved it unceremoniously into Sam's outstretched arms at the first opportunity.

"All set, Sammy?"

Sam's smile quirked into a grin. "Of coursem Danny-kins. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

And with that, Danny scooped her up into his arms as he flew toward the Fenton abode and the ever-open Fenton Ghost Portal.


End file.
